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Author: 


Taylor,  George  Robert 
Stirling 

Title: 

The  guild  state 


Place: 


New  York 


Date: 


[1919] 


MASTER   NEGATIVE  * 


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ORIGINAL  MATERIAL  AS  FILMED  -    EXISTING  BIBLIOGRAPHIC  RECORD 


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Taylor,  George  Robert  Stirling. 

The  guild  state ;  its  principles  and  possibilities,  by  G.  R 
Stirling  Taylor.    Loirdmr.  #r:A:ttcii*-UTndn  ltd.  [19i^] 
^       ^  rev/  Yor^:.  Maonillan   rJ-9^^0i 


153  p.    19™. 


1.  Gild  socialism.        I.  Title. 


Library  of  Congress 


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GIVEN  BY 

THOMAS  WRIGHT 

1932 


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FOR  RESERVE  USE  ONLY 


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THE   GUILD   STATE 


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THE    GUILD    STATE 

ITS   PRINCIPLES   AND   POSSIBILITIES 


G.    R.    STIRLING   TAYLOR 


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■»      »  . 


NEW    YORK 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 


1  J;J 


PREFACE 


\ 


6 


\A>9 


First  published  September  igig 
Reprinted  ....  April  1920 


« •  • 


•  * 


•  i 


{i4//  ri^/r/s  teserved) 


the    social    barometer    the    needle    shows 
J  ^^  threatening  signs  of  finding  the  markings  on 
■  ^  the  dial  too  few  to  register  its  lowest  intentions. 
<  There  is  consequently  much  hurrying  to  and  fro 
Q  in  the  world — like  a  camp  scuttling  to  tighten  the 
<n  ropes  before  the  wind  begins.     The  soldiers  and 
^  the  politicians,  knowing  little  of  history — or  any- 
^  thing  else — ^vainly  imagined  that  they  could  give 
rt  us  their  Great  Plague  of  1914-1918,  and  that  no 
^  Wat   Tylers   and  John   Balls   would  arise  here- 
d  after   to   declare    that  they  disHked    the    results. 
^  To-day,  the  rulers  of  the  earth  probably  realize 
that   they  have    been   like    schoolboys    recklessly 
playing  in  a  powder  magazine.     Hence  a  sudden 
crop  of  books  on  Reform  and  Reconstruction,  as 
numberless  as  the  good  intentions  wiih  which  the 
other  world  is   rumoured  to   be  already  paved. 
They    would    be    admirable   books,    so    many  of 
them,    if    it    were    not    for    the    somewhat    vital 
defect  that  they  ignore  hiost  of  the  facts.     More 
especially,  they  refuse  to  take  man — that  patient 
sport    of    the    wits    and    the    wise — as   he    really 
exists;     but   rather   as   a   dummy   studio   model, 
which  they  may  dress  according  to  their  weirdest 
tastes.      There  was   once,   it  is   said,  a   learned 
professor  who  set  himself  to  write  an  essay  on 
the  giraffe.     He  did  not  go  to  Africa  to  see  one; 
he  retired  to  a  tower  and  wrote  a  beautiful  and 
convincing  book  out  of  his  imagination. 

The  following  essay  is  an  attempt  to  state  the 
Guild  remedy  for  the  disasters  of  modern  states- 
manship.    It  is  based  on  dull  facts  and  the  most 


ri' 


I 


6 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


common-sense  deductions  therefrom.  It  takes 
man  as  he  is;  and  history  as  he  has  made  it. 
It  has  therefore  little  to  do  with  the  mankind  that 
politicians   dream  of,    or    with    the   history   that 

historians  write. 

In    a    world    submerged    in    the    sentimental 
rhetoric    of    Cabinet    Minister's    and    newspaper 
writers,  and  the  Myrtle  Villa  ideals  of  the  suburbs 
they    so    fittingly    represent,    one    clings    rather 
eagerly  to  the  hope  of  better  things.     The  eye 
catches  some  notes  just  written  by  Mr.   Paton, 
the   new   organizing    secretary   of    the    National 
Guilds  League.     He  is  moved  to  joy  that  while 
Watt   was   toiling    to    invent    the    steam  engine, 
•*  a  few  miles  down  the  river,  at  Poosie  Nancy's 
cheerful  board,  a  greater  than  Watt,  command- 
ing mightier  forces  still,  caroused  with  his  boon 
companions  "  :    and  when   this   secretary   in   the 
Labour  movement,  skilled  in  the  knowledge  of 
trade  union  rules,   goes  on  to   ask  whether  the 
author  of  the  machine  industry  deserves  "  honour 
or    execration,"    then    there    is    hope    that    the 
workers  will  be  taught  r^al  economics   at  last  ; 
and,  incidentally,  that  the   "educated"   will  be 
taught  good  taste. 

The  facts  on  which  this  book  is  based  are 
drawn  from  the  standard  historical  and  economic 
sources,  too  numerous  to  name.  Their  interpreta- 
tion owes  more  to  the  teaching  of  everyday  life 
than  to  the  professors ;  though  the  essay  would 
probably  not  have  been  attempted  but  for  the 
advantage  of  many  conversations  witR  Mrs. 
Emily  Townshend  and  Mr.  Arthur  J.  Penty. 

G.  R.  S.  T. 


JU 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEK 

PREFACE  ... 


PAGE 

5 


I.    THE     HISTORICAL     BASIS     OF     TH^-     GUILD 

SYSTEM  —  —  •••      9 

II.    THE    FIRST    PRINCIPLE:    ORGANIZATION    BY 

FUNCTION        ...  ...  ...  -.  •..    36 

III.  THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE:  SELF-MANAGEMENT    57 

IV.  THE  THIRD   PRINCIPLE  :  DECENTRALIZATION 

AND  SMALL  BNITS     ...  ...  ...  ...    73 


V.    CONSEQUENT      RESULTS      OF      THE      GUILD 
PRINCIPLES     ... 

(a)  variety  of  experiments... 

(b)  sane  competition 

(C)  PEACEFUL  TRANSITION 

(D)  THE   EDUCATION   OF   THE  WORKERS... 

(e)  the     DEMOCRATIC     DISTRIBUTION    OF     POWER 


91 
92 

93 

0 

101 


AND  WEALTH     ... 
(f)  THE  HEALING  OF  SOCIAL  WOUNDS 


...    104 
...    107 


VI.     THE     RELATIONS     BETWEEN     GUILDS     AND 

STATE...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ..  109 

VII.    A   GUILDSMAN'S   PHILOSOPHY   OF   LIFE  ..    134 


'4 


THE    GUILD   STATE 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    HISTORICAL    BASIS    OF    THE 
GUILD    SYSTEM 

THERE  is  a  fantastic  rumour,  circulating 
in  the  main  among  historical  dons  and  in 
political  clubs,  that  progress  is  the  discovery  of 
something  new.  Whereas,  in  truth,  it  is  far 
more  often  the  return  to  something  old.  One 
looks  in  baffled  search  for  the  origin  of  this 
most  amazing  error;  for  it  is  without  proof 
either  in  the  records  of  the  past  or  in  the  facts 
of  the  present.  The  historians  and  the  poli- 
ticians have  seemingly  made  an  unpardonable 
mistake  ;  which,  fortunately,  that  sane  creature, 
the  normal  healthy  man,  has  not  shared  with 
them.  For  the  common  people  are  not  so  easily 
lured  into  the  quicksands  of  loose  thinking  as 
are  those  who  spend  their  lives  in  libraries  and 
parliament  chambers.  It  has  been  the  rarest 
of  events  when  the  people  have  asked  for  new 
laws  :  in  their  times  of  revolt  they  have  so 
persistently  desired  that  they  should  return  to 
something  already  possessed  in  the  past.     When 


^        '!  i 


1 


10 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  HISTORICAL  BASIS 


11 


William  the  Conqueror  intruded  himself  into  our 
social  system,  his  subjects  (beingf  somewhat 
troubled  by  his  *'  higher  "  civilization)  could 
think  of  nothing  more  to  their  minds  than  a 
return  to  the  customs  of  the  Confessor ;  a  request 
which  they  continued  to  make  until  the  new 
Norman  laws  had  become  old  enough  to  be 
bearable.  The  Great  Charter  of  John  was  really 
a  poor  thing  in  any  democratic  sense,  for  it 
said  so  little  about  any  one  except  the  barons; 
yet  it  was  popular — probably  because  it  contained 
very  littfe  that  was  new.  A  few  hundred  years 
afterwards,  when  the  growth  of  the  politicians* 
new  parliamentary  system  was  obviously  sapping 
the  Uberty  of  the  people,  there  arose  a  cry  for 
reform — Englishmen  began  to  demand  again  the 
liberties  of  the  Feudal  Ages,  as  written  in  John's 
charter.  However,  this  is  not  a  history  book; 
what  one  desires  here  is  to  recall  the  historical 
fact  that  common  men  rarely  ask  for  anything 
new  in  their  social  structure.  They  have  a 
stubborn  belief  that  the  old  ways  are  better. 
It  is  remarkable  that  so  many  people  are 
asking  to-day  for  some  explanation  of  the  Guild 
system,  for  the  guilds  are  not  a  new  idea.  They 
are,  on  the  contrary,  probably  the  most  widely 
spread  idea  on  the  earth,  and  one  of  the  very 
oldest.  In  asking  for  a  Guild  system,  one  is 
not  asking  for  anything  new,  but  for  something 
exceedingly  old.  This  is  not  another  of  those 
new-fangled  notions  of  political  circles,  but 
something   so    old    and    well   established    in    the 


history   of   the    world   that    the   politicians    have 
never    heard   of    it.      For    a    long    part   of    the 
history    of   mankind,    the    guilds    have    been    an 
essential  element  in  almost  all  societies.     Since 
men    first    became    craftsmen   and    industrialists, 
instead  of  nomads  and  cave-dwellers,  the  almost 
universal  judgment  of  mankind  has  accepted  the 
Guild    system    as    the    most    rational    manner    in 
which   the   work   of   the   world   can   most   easily 
be  done.     This  is  not  the  place  to  offer  proofs 
of  this  statement   ;    they  are  to  be  found  in  the 
whole   of  history,   and  concerning  almost   every 
people  under  the  sun.     In  India,  China,  Greece, 
Rome;     in   all    Europe    since    it    gave    up    bar- 
barism;    in  the  whole  world  even  before  it  be- 
came quite  civilized— as  police  court  magistrates 
understand    that    term— the    guilds   have    had    a 
universal  place.     But  it  was  in  those  days  which 
we  now  collect  together  unde,r  the  name  of  the 
••  Middle   Ages  "   that    the   guilds   reached    their 
prime.      During    the    thirteenth    and    fourteenth 
centuries  the  guilds   ranked  in  Western  Europe 
with  the  barons  and  the  kings,  as  the  dominant 
factors  in  the  social  structure  of  their  period. 

The  observer  in  England  to-day  can  so 
easily  lose  a  sense  of  proportion  in  judging 
the  guild  idea  ;  he  thinks  of  it  as  past  and 
somewhat  local,  while  with  equal  ease  he 
imagines  that  our  present  economic  system 
is  universal  ;  whereas  it  is  only  local  even 
to-day.  In  the  pages  of  history,  modern 
capitalism     is     a     mere     novelty,     an     upstart 


'■1 


t. 


12 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE   HISTORICAL   BASIS 


13 


theory  without  a  pedigree — ^and  perhaps  without  a 
future.  It  is  all-important  to  start  our  analysis 
with  a  proper  sense  of  proportion  between  the 
old  and  the  new  ;  it  will  restore  that  due  balance 
of  the  mind  which  the  insistent  shriek  of  '*  the 
new  **  in  every  morning  paper  so  unconsciously 
tends  to  overturn. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Guild  sysiem 
even  at  its  prime  was  only  one  part  of  a  greater 
whole.  That  great  adventure  of  man  which  we 
tell  as  the  tale  of  the  Middle  Ages;  that  very 
subtle  blending  of  mind  and  matter,  of  spirit 
and  craft,  which  we  call  the  mediaeval  social 
system,  was  the  whole  which  we  must  realize  if 
we  are  to  understand  the  guilds,  which  are  only 
a  part  of  it.  For  they  are  not  something  which 
can  be  torn  from  its  setting,  as  a  jewel  can  be 
dislodged  from  a  ring.  They  were  too  organic 
a  part  of  the  mediaeval  age  to  survive  such  an 
outrage.  The  sceptics  are  right  when  they  con- 
tinually chatter  in  our  ears  :  **  You  cannot  go 
back  " — if  they  mean  that  it  is  impossible  to 
tear  a  part  from  the  old,  in  the  vain  hope  of 
fitting  it  into  a  new  system  that  is  as  the  Pole 
from  the  Pole  apart.  When  we  understand  a 
little  of  what  the  Middle  Ages  were,  then  we 
may  know  what  the  guilds  meant  in  a  social 
system   which   they   did  so   much   to    build. 

It  was  written  above  that  the  guilds  ranked 
with  the  kings  and  the  barons  as  the  foundation 
of  mediaeval  society.  But  strictly  speaking  the 
king,    ahhough   the    centre    of   the    picture,    was 


less  important  in  detail  than  the  other  two ;  and 
by  understanding  why  we  shall  understand  also 
that  main  principle  of  mediaevalism — local  inde- 
pendence—on which  the  guilds  themselves 
depended,  and  must  always  depend — for  it  is 
the  root  principle  of  their  existence. 

The    king    and    his    law    are    almost    modern 
ideas;     and   certainly    as   We    know   them    both 
to-day,    would   have    been    entirely    beyond    the 
conception  of  a  mediaeval  mind.      We  think   of 
the  king  as  the  symbol  of  a  great  central  govern- 
ment,   imposing    his    law    on    his    subjects    by 
all   the.  majesty    of    the    poHce,    from    the    Lord 
Chancellor  to  the  village  constable.      When  the 
guilds    were    alive,    their    members    would    have 
found  it  difficult  to  grasp  any  such  idea.      The 
king   was   to   them   a   far-away    creature   whose 
main   function    was   to    lead   the   nation    in   war 
and  defend  it  from  attack.     It  was  certainly  not 
his  function  to  interfere  as  a  legislator  or  judge 
in    their;   private    affairs,    which    they    felt    quite 
capable    of  managing    themselves.      Parliament, 
again,   in  so   far  as   it   was   a   fact  at   all,    they 
regarded   as   a   body  of   representatives   sent    to 
Westminster    to    make    as    good    a    bargain    as 
possible   in.  the   matter   of   taxation;     and   then 
return  home  again  as  quickly  as  possible  and  get 
to  their  honest  work.      Scarcely  any  one  would 
have  thought  of  Parliament  as  an  institution  to 
make  "  laws." 

**  Law  "  was  a  rare  event  in  the  history  of 
the   Middle   A^es;     and   kin^s    were    people    of 


i 


'I 


.ij 


14 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  HISTORICAL  BASIS 


15 


modest  claims.  The  mediaeval  man  governed 
himself  in  a  democratic  sense  which  seems 
beyond  the  realms  of  fantasy  in  these  despotic 
days  of  universal  suffrage  and  innumerable 
popular  councils.  Instead  of  electing  delegates 
to  make  laws  at  Westminster,  the  people  of 
the  Middle  Ages  were  their  own  legislators  at 
home.  It  may  sound  very  rural  ;  but  we  have 
failed  to  grasp  the  fact  that  it  is  really  far 
better  to  be  so  safe  in  our  freedom  that  we  do 
not  need  to  be  protected  by  representatives  at 
all.  It  is  only  necessary  to  send  our  man  to 
Parliament  when  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
somebody  there  is  going  to  take  away  our  rights. 
But  in  the  Middle  Ages  there  was  so  little 
intrusion  of  that  sort  by  autocratic  gentlemen  at 
Westminster.  Indeed,  they  had  scarcely  invented 
that  impertinent  thing  we  now  call  "  government." 
The  origin  of  our  Parliament  is  a  case  in  point . 
It  was  not  any  desire  of  the  people  that  created 
it.  It  never  entered  their  heads  that  somebody 
at  Westminster  should  make  laws  for  Somerset 
or  Yorkshire.  Parliaments  began  because  the 
Crown  had,  in  some  way  or  another,  to  persuade 
the  people  to  be  taxed.  It  was  only  as  an  after- 
thought that  the  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons  thought  that,  if  they  had  to  pay,  it 
would  be  as  well  to  get  something  in  return. 
So  they  asked  for  laws — ^not  laws  to  tell  the 
people  what  they  must  do,  but  mainly  to  tell  the 
king  what  he  must  not  do.  However,  the  kings 
also  saw  their  chance,  and  they  soon  invented 


the  autocratic,  compellins^  law  "  which  we  know 
to-day.  But  that  waj^t  an  idea  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  when  i<^was  invented,  and  imposed, 
then  the  mediaeval  system  rapidly  disappeared. 
For  the  very  heart  of  it  was  that  the  people  had 
to  an  extraordinary  degree  the  liberty  to  make 
their  own  law  and  order.  That  is  a  historical 
fact,  which  some  people  imagine  a  mere  light- 
hearted  paradox — ^but  that  is  because  they  know 
very  little  about  history. 

The  compelling  force  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
not  Law,  but  Custom.  One  has  said  that  the 
people  made  their  own  laws  at  home;  but  the 
statement  requires  instant  qualification.  For  they 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  "  made  "  laws  at 
all.  They  did  not  vote  new  rules.  They  rather 
Uved  after  the  traditions  which  their  fathers 
had  handed  down  to  them;  for  men  that  possess 
the  traditions  of  centuries  have  little  need  for 
the  laws  of  yesterday  or  to-day.  For  tradition 
is  the  everlasting  memory  of  mankind;  remem- 
bering the  great  lessons  of  its  past,  storing  them 
up  in  the  mind  of  man,  until  they  become 
instinctive,  even  as  the  half-conscious  knowledge 
of  the  beast  is  stored  as  a  protection  from 
danger. 

The  government  of  the  Middle  Ages,  such  as  it 
existed  at  all,  was  almost  purely  local.  The 
great  modem  State  was  unknown.  There  was 
certainly  a  man  who  called  himself  King  of 
England,  and  one  who  called  himself  King  of 
the  French;    but  compared  with  the  kings  and 


i\l 


16 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


17 


presidents  of  to-day,  they  were  mere  babes  at 
the  game  of  ruling  :  they  were  far  too  gentle- 
manly to  think  of  anything  so  crude  and  un- 
mannerly. The  government  was  accomplished  by 
manorial  courts,  and  burgesses  of  the  towns; 
abbots  in  their  monasteries,  and  barons  in  their 
castles,  were  the  factors  of  pubHc  life  with  which 
they  reckoned  in  those  days,  in  a  much  deeper 
sense  than  they  reckoned  with  the  king.  Kent 
did  not  much  mind  what  they  were  doing  in 
Warwickshire,  and  would  certainly  have  resented 
it  keenly  if  Warwickshire  men  had  been  too 
inquisitive  about  Kent.  That  very  exaggerated 
social  factor,  rather  cleverly  termed  **  public 
business,*'  had  then  scarcely  been  invented. 
(Now  that  it  has  arrived  as  a  much-extolled 
social  function,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that 
so  much  of  it  is  still  mainly  the  private  business  of 
the  councillors  and  their  personal  friends,  and 
has  comparatively  little  to  do  with  the  interest 
of  their  constituents.  But  the  disadvantages  of 
central  government  will  be  discussed  later.) 
Private  business,  in  its  more  legitimate  sense, 
was  good  enough  for  the  wise  creatures  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Their  main  business  was  doing 
their  daily  work ;  and  they  were  not  over-anxious 
about  what  was  happening  somewhere  else.  In 
earlier  days,  even  the  murder  of  one's  neighbour 
to  a  large  extent  was  private  business,  which 
mainly  concerned  the  two  families  of  the  victor 
and  the  victim.  Such  pubHc  business  as  there 
was  had  rather  the  air  of  the  parish  council  than 


of  the  more  pompous  Houses  of  Parliament  ;  it 
was  a  question  for  a  guild  regulation,  a  municipal 
or  manorial  custom.  They  never  discussed  the 
best  method  of  conquering  the  other  ends  of 
the  earth,  and  rarely  even  discussed  a  constitution 
for  their  ovm  country.  Government  dealt  with 
homely  facts,  not  with  far-away  theories. 

Since  there  were  in  those  days  such  shadowy 
great  nations  and  such  small  governing  units,  it 
is  not  surprising!  that  Government  Was  so  local 
an  institution.  National  affairs  had  not  been 
found  necessary,  because  there  were  scarcely  any 
nations.  They  are  only  a  modern  idea.  We 
read  of  the  mighty  struggle  between  Athens  and 
Sparta;  and  perhaps  picture  it  in  terms  of  two 
States  as  we  know  them  to-day.  We  forget  that 
they  Were  neighbouring  towns,  about  forty  miles 
apart  as  the  crow*  flew.  It  was  as  if  Birmingham 
had  challenged  Manchester  to  mortal  combat. 
The  moral  for  the  moment  is  that  in  thie  Middle 
Ages  towns  were  as  important  as  great  States  to- 
day, not  that  they  were  as  trivial  as  modern 
towns.  The  Middle  Ages  built  up  a  gorgeous 
structure  of  intellect  and  economics  and  art  on 
a  basis  that  knew  nothing  of  such  a  modern 
notion  as  an   empire. 

Here  we  are  faced  with  a  grave  exception; 
and  it  is  the  exception  which  may  help  to  prove 
the  rule.  The  CathoHc  Church  of  Rome  claimed 
that  it  gathered  under  its  guiding  hand  the  whole 
%weep  of  the  world  of  Western  Europe.  It 
ieUberately,  in  the  very  heyday  of  the  mediaeval 

2 


I 


11 


■ 


18 


THE  GUILD   STATE 


THE  HISTORICAL  BASIS 


10 


ideals,  conceived  of  the  great  society  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Church.     Now  the  essence  of  the  modern 
great   State  is   that  it  is  based  on   the  idea  of 
force;       it     has     been     built     by     the     coercion 
of    arms,    and    maintained    by    the    compulsion 
of  magistrates  and  policemen  and  prison  warders. 
Note    how    far    away    all    this    was    from    the 
ecclesiastical  claims.      The   Catholic   Church,   in 
the  theory  of  the  Middle  Ages,  refused  to  sanction 
the  shedding  of  blood.     If  it  was  to  build  itself 
a  great  State  it  must  be  by  moral  persuasion.     It 
could   excommunicate   the   sinner;     it   could  not 
hang   him.      The    Inquisition    and    the   War   of 
the    Waldenses    were   the    practical    and   mainly 
local  lapses  of  man  from  his  theory;    but  if  we 
are  to  make  history  the  record  of  lapses,  then, 
indeed,  it  will  be  a  thing  without  form.      If  the 
CathoUc  Church  had  won  its  great  contest  with 
the  Emperors,  then  it  is  possible  that  we  mighr 
have  escaped  this  nightmare  of  great  autocratic 
nations,  tearing  out  each  other's  vitals.     Europe 
might  well  be  now  governed  by  a  moral  force 
which  had  banished  the  crudity  of  physical  force 
from    civiUzation;      and    without    physical    force 
there   could  be   no   "  nationalism  **   as   we   know 
it  to-day.     The  nationalism  of  races  w^ill  survive, 
as  the  individuality  of  individuals  will  survive  in 
a    reasonable   society;     but   it    will   not    be    that 
artificial    thing,    the    "  nationality  **    which    has 
grown   round  the   ambitions  of  kings  and   their 
bureaucrats.     The  victory  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
—had  it  kept  its  pure  faith—would  have  been 


the  defeat  of  physical  tyranny;  and  it  was  the 
physical  tyranny  of  the  armies  of  autocratic  kings 
that  broke  the  local  freedom  of  the  Middle 
Ages  asj  a  martyr  was  broken  on  the  wheel. 
But  it  was  the  bureaucrat  and  the  politician — 
not  the  king  so  much^ — ^who  reaped  the  fruits 
of  that  conquest. 

It  is  natural  that  in  this  mediaeval  society  of 
common-sense  people   the  guilds   should   take   a 
supremely    important    part.       In    an    age    when 
government  was  both  local  and  economic,  instead 
of   centralized    and   political — that    is,    when    the 
town  or  village  mainly  ruled  itself,  and  when  its 
"  laws  "    were    the    rules    of    everyday    business 
affairs — then     the    guild,     being     the     collective 
assembly    of    the    local    wisdom    and    business 
experience,    naturally   took    a   foremost   place    in 
pubUc    life.       If    the    king    did    endeavour    to 
interfere  in  local  government,  for  a   long   time 
it   was  merely   to   acknowledge   by  his   approval 
the  laws  which  the  local  assemblies  had  already 
acknowledged   for   themselves.      It    was    merely 
a    tactful    courtesy    on    the    part    of    the    local 
councils.     Thus  the  king  would  grant  a  charter 
recognizing   the   customs   of  the   burgesses   of  a 
town  or  the  members  of  a  guild.      They   were 
rarely   new  laws;     they  were    those   that   were 
already  obeyed.     Slowly  the  central  powers  built 
up   a    governing    hierarchy   of    their    own  :     the 
sheriffs,  the  justices  of  the  King's  Court,  the  lord- 
lieutenant  of  the  counties,  gradually  sucked  the 
power  from  the  local  assemblies  and  held  it  in 


<  J 


ii  i 


'fl 


if- 


20 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


the  hands  of  the  councils  and  officers  of  the 
Crown.  But  when  that  was  accompUshed,  the 
Middle  Ages  were  no  more;  the  Modern  System 
had  begun.  In  mediaeval  days  government  was, 
in  the  main,  the  laws  of  town  council  and  guild. 
It  was  a  matter  of  the  serious  practical  affairs  of 
everyday  life — ^not  the  discussion  of  vague  senti- 
mentalities, which  newspaper  editors  now  call 
••politics."  And  of  this  very  practical  business- 
like Mediaeval  Society,  the  guilds  were  the  most 
substantial  foundation — while  the  kings  and  their 
parliaments  were  the  gay  flags  and  gilded 
weathercocks  which  gave  colour  and  sparkle 
to  the  show^ — ^and  have  confused  the  childlike 
minds  of  the  orthodox  historical  dons  ever  since. 
There  are  those  who  will  say  that  this  theory 
of  the  Middle  Ages  is  a  pleasant  dream  for 
the  idealists.  But  there  is  really  no  need 
to  leave  the  discussion  in  the  field  of  vague 
theory.  The  period  can  be  approached  as  a  fact. 
Let  us  agree  to  differ  as  to  what  the  mediaeval 
men  possessed  in  the  way  of  a  political  or  social 
constitution;  let  us  doubt  all  their  ideals;  let 
us  dismiss  mediaevalism  as  a  dream  of  the 
**  modern  romantic  imagination."  But  there  are 
certain  survivals  of  the  Middle  Ages  which  cannot 
be  so  airily  dismissed.  It  requires  more  imagina- 
tion to  dismiss  Chartres  Cathedral  and  West- 
minster Abbey  than  to  accept  them.  We 
may  argue  that  we  do  not  like  the  thousands 
of  mediaeval  facts  that  are  still  dotted  over 
Western  Europe,  in  its  churches  and  sculptures 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


21 


« 

and  manuscripts,  but  they  cannot  be  flicked 
away  by  that  phrase  **  romantic  imagination." 
There  are  few  with  sufficient  intellectual  nerve 
to  deny  that  the  mediaeval  constitution  pro- 
duced a  very  great  architecture,  sculpture, 
painting,  literature,  and  philosophy  of  life, 
against  which  the  products  of  modern  society 
seem  too  often  the  refuse  of  a  rummage  sale. 
If  we  intend  to  prove  that  the  modem  system  is 
better  than  the  mediaeval  system,  then  we  must 
bravely  face  our  task.  We  must  prove,  for 
example,  that  Manchester  is  better  than  Bruges, 
that  Chicago  is  better  than  Florence.  We  must 
work  out  with  some  accuracy  of  detail  that  Mr. 
Churchill  is  a  greater  statesman  than  St.  Anselm; 
and  that  Lord  Curzon  is  a  nobler  figure  than 
Simon  de  Montfort.  These  are  not  questions 
that  can  be  avoided  in  a  maze  of  generalities 
and  theories.  They  are  facts,  which  are  the 
very  foundation   of  the   argument. 

But  this  is  not  the  place  either  for  argument 
or  for  proofs.  It  is  now  merely  attempted  to 
suggest  in  outline  what  it  would  need  a  hundred 
history  books  to  prove.  But  whether  we  like 
its  beauty  and  sanity  or  not,  the  Mediaeval  Age  in 
its  main  features  had  a  symmetry  of  order  which 
very  clearly  distinguishes  it  from  the  social  order, 
or  disorder,  that  governs  us  to-day.  It  was  a 
system  that  knew  little  of  the  **  laws  "  and 
poHtical  ideas  that  are  the  commonplaces  of  our 
pubHc  life  now.  The  mediaeval  man  would  have 
regarded  the  new  kingdom,  governed  by  a  new 


I 


22 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


king,  and  still  newer  bureaucrats,  as  an  incon- 
ceivable monstrosity.  The  king  and  his  central 
coercion  were  the  mere  surface  of  the  Middle 
Ages;  and  in  spite  of  the  rudeness  of  barons 
and  the  turbulent  vigour  of  a  society  which  was 
not  very  regardful  of  life  or  of  limb,  yet,  take 
it  all  in  all,  the  Mediaeval  Age  was  the  time  of 
a  rough  democratic  liberty,  a  sound  practical 
sense  of  what  it  was  good  for  a  king  to  do, 
and  what  it  was  none  of  his  business  to  attempt. 

There  was  no  sudden  change  to  the  modern 
system,  for  there  never  is  any  sudden  change 
in  human  affairs.  There  are  political  upheavals 
which  the  newspapers  call  "revolutions";  but 
it  is  rarely  that  they  dislodge  more  than  a  few 
stones  in  the  fabric  of  social  life.  The  Revolu- 
tion is  usually  the  device  of  a  gang  of  political 
adventurers  or  police  spies  who  see  the  oppor- 
tunity to  seize  a  little  power — as  less  adventurous 
men  snatch  a  leg  of  mutton  from  a  butcher's 
stall.  But  as  the  snatching  of  mutton  does 
not  really  disorganize  the  meat  trade,  so  the 
scrambling  of  revolutionary  adventurers  scarcely 
shakes,  except  for  a  moment,  the  very  steady 
fabric  of  humanity.  It  was  no  sudden  upheaval 
that  changed  a  mediaeval  society  into  a  modern 
one  :    it  was  an  infinitely  persistent  undermining. 

Whereas  the  mediaeval  system  was  based  on 
local  production  and  local  customs,  and  its  civic 
organs  were  local  and  economic  and  democratic, 
the  Modern  Age  is  centralized,  pohtical  and 
autocratic.      Expressed    in    material    facts    it    is 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


23 


the  difference  between  the  City  States  of  Bruges 
or  Florence  and  the  massive  Empire  of  Britain 
or  the  highly  centralized  Republic  of  France. 
There  is  one  way  in  which  this  modern  cen- 
tralization can  be  quickly  grasped.  Take  an 
historical  atlas  of  mediaeval  Europe.  Note  that 
after  the  break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire  the 
broad  masses  of  colour  disappear  from  the  maps  : 
France,  Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  become  a  maze 
of  small  kingdoms  and  independent  communes. 
Nations  do  not  exist  at  the  beginning  of  the 
period — though  some  of  the  Carolingian  kings 
talked  in  big  words  of  their  rights  and  acres. 
Gradually  the  maps  get  simpler;  fewer  and 
fewer  colours  and  boundary  lines  are  needed  to 
express  the  facts;  for  the  counts  and  communes 
gradually  gave  place  to  greater  kings  and  more 
comprehensive  parliaments.  For  example,  the 
seven  kingdoms  of  the  Heptarchy  give  place  to 
the  one  king  at  Winchester.  Being  only  a  king, 
of  course  he  had  Httle  power  in  thei  Middle  Ages, 
but  he  was  the  beginning  of  that  process  which 
was  to  end  one  day  in  this  modern  system  of 
centraUzation,  based  on  physical  force  and  the 
intellectual  tyranny  which  followed  it.  Only  the 
Church  of  Rome  emerged  from  the  mediaeval 
debacle  in  the  reverse  order  from  the  other  great 
factors  of'  the  period;  it  came  out,  not  more 
centraHzed,  but  split  into  many  parts;  perhaps 
because  it  alone  did  not  base  its  rule  on  physical 
compulsion,  which  was  the  basis  of  all  the  powers 
of  its  companion  potentates. 


\\ 


^•s» 


:Hi!: 


w\ 


m 


il-J! 


24 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


This  centralization  of  governing  power  has 
been  a  slow  process;  and,  indeed,  it  is  only 
in  the  last  few  decades  that  it  has  reached  its 
full  results  in  the  breeding  of  an  insolent 
plutocracy  that  resembles,  with  strange  likeness, 
those  vulgar  rich  who  were  bl-ed  by  the  like 
centralization  which  took  place  in  the  Roman 
Republic.  For  we  must  remember  that  Rome 
had  already  tried  centralization  centuries  before 
Henry  Tudor  and  Louis  XI  played  that  dangerous 
game  in  England  and  France.  But  could  we 
live  under  their  rule,  it  would  seem  like  the 
Middle  Ages  to  our  modernized  minds.  If  the 
modern  system  can  be  said  to  have  a  clear 
beginning,  in  the  case  of  England  it  would 
certainly  have  to  be  placed  in  the  time  of  the 
Tudor  dynasty.  Yet  how  far  the  end  has  gone 
beyond  that  beginning.  Even  the  Tudors  in- 
vented but  a  very  few^  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
new  system,  or  rather  they  were  able  to  get  only 
a  few  of  its  results.  It  needed  much  more  than 
the  drafting*  of  a  new  constitution  or  the  issue  of 
a  few  official  regulations  to  change  the  free 
citizens  of  the  mediaeval  community  into  the 
helpless  tools  of  a  modern  State. 

There  are  few  things  more  characteristic  of 
the  modern  system  than  one  of  its  most  charac- 
teristic products,  the  politicians:.  They  are  the 
keystone  of  the  whole  structure.  To-day  they 
are  thick  as  slugs  after  a  summer  rain;  but  in 
the  Tudor  period  they  had  not  yet  been  bred. 
Take    the   case    of   Queen    EHzabeth;     she    had 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


25 


perhaps  the  most  honest  and  most  efficient 
ministers  of  State  that  this  nation  has  ever 
possessed.  Burleigh  and  Walsingham  thought 
of  their  country's  welfare  before  their  own; 
Walsingham  did  not  even  leave  enough  wealth 
to  give  his  body  a  decent  burial.  It  was 
certainly  not  the  control  of  the  House 
of  Commons  that  kept  such  men  straight; 
indeed,  the  Commons  had  not  yet  much  power 
to  exert.  The  governing  machine  was  still 
compelled  to  use  men  who  had  not  lost  all 
sense  of  democratic  needs  and  communal  honour. 
Politics  had  not  yet  become  a  career  by  which 
one  could  win  a  fat  post  by  serving;  the  interests 
of  the  great  merchants  and  bankers.  It  was 
not  until  much  later  that  governing  became  a 
profession,  and  statesmen  became  politicians 
instead  of  administrators.  Burleigh  was  a 
skilled  administrator  to  his  finger-tips  :  not 
a  popular  talker  for  use  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  State  papers  of  his  period  are 
covered  with  his  comments  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, with  careful  summing  of  the  arguments 
for  and  against.  The  modern  politician  scarcely 
ceases  talking,  while  Burleigh  rarely  stopped 
working.  He  was  almost  everything  that  his 
successors  are  not.  He  is  a  summary  of  the 
vast  change  that  has  come  over  the  art  of 
Government.  We  can  trace  its  gradual  decline 
in  efficiency  and  honesty  as  the  centralized 
system  has  developed;  until  to-day  the  word 
**  politician  *'    is   a   term  of   contempt. 


t  .. 


!: 

J- 


II 


i 


ill 


'■s 


in- 


1 


nir 


MH 


M    ,^ 


,'l    i 


26 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


THE   HISTORICAL   BASIS 


27 


Central  government  is  the  root  of  the  modern 
system;  and  it  includes  within  its  scope  affairs 
that  were  altogether  outside  the  bounds  of  the 
mediaeval  monarchy.  The  Government  now 
really  tries  to  govern.  Whether  we  call  it  Tory 
Democracy  or  Collectivist  Socialism,  the  modern 
idea  is  that  the  people  should  receive  their 
instructions  from  above.  It  is  assumed  that  the 
State  can  govern  its  subjects  far  better  than 
they  can  govern  themselves.  Perhaps  if  one  can 
grasp  the  difference  betw^n  the  feudal  Simon 
de  Montfort  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George  one  may 
get  near  the  essential  difference  between  the 
two  systems.  The  object  of  the  feudal  lord  was 
to  free  the  Eng^lish  people  from  the  control 
of  a  tyrannical  State  by  taking'  away  its  powers. 
The  aim  of  the  modern  politician  appears  to 
be  to  increase  by  every  means  that  central  power. 
The  charters  of  the  Plantagenet  kings  were 
mainly  to  define  what  the  Crown  and  its  Council 
should  not  do.  To-day,  the  politician  calls  it 
**  reform  "  when  he  adds  to  the  power' of  the 
central  government  by  piling  an  Insurance  Act 
on  the  top  of  an  Old  Age  Pension  Act,  and 
smothers  them  both  with  innumerable  other  acts 
for  controlling  the  lives  of  the  people  down 
below.  It  is  not  necessary  to  criticize  this  as 
merely  a  matter  of  theory — for  we  are  face  to 
face    with   its    appalling^  practical    results. 

That  is  the  vital  distinction  between  the  old 
system  and  the  new;  it  attempts  to  govern  from 
the    centre,    instead   of    leaving   it    to    the   local 


parts.  Since  the  Middle  Ages  there  has  been 
a  continual  weakening  of  the  local  power,  and 
a  still  more  rapid  growth  of  the  central  political 
organization.  It  is  one  of  the  great  lessons  of 
history — though  few  historians  have  learned  it 
themselves,  let  alone  taught  it  to  their  students— 
that  the  most  inevitable  result  of  this  development 
is  that  government  has  ceased  to  be  conducted  by 
the  men  who  are  intimately  in  touch  with  the 
work  in  hand,  and  has  passed  into  the  control 
of  the  political  amateurs  and  the  clerical 
bureaucrats,  who  often  have  every  qualification 
except  personal  knowledge  of  the  work  they  are 
trying  to  manage.  It  is  possible  to  concede  that 
all  our  politicians  will  be  saints  and  all  our 
officials  in  Whitehall  will  be  learned  professors; 
yet  modern  government  must  sooner  or  later 
break  down,  because  it  is  growing  so  complex 
and  so  remote  from  the  facts  of  the  case,  that  a 
sainted  professor  himself  could  not  keep  his  head 
and  heart  in  such  a  turmoil  and  confusion. 

Government  has  come  to  be  a  massive 
structure  in  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  Vienna, 
Petrograd  and  Rome.  In  these  overstrained 
centres  we  find  a  vast  crowd  of  officials  who 
have  but  a  trivial  knowledge  of  what  they  ought 
to  do;  while  outside  are  the  passive  citizens, 
who  scarcely  can  discover  what  has  been  done. 
It  is  a  tragedy  of  cross-purposes.  It  has  become 
a  superstition  that  this  is  the  only  way  of 
governing,  and  that  the  only  people  who  can  do  it 
are  these  politicians,  with  their  bureaucrats  and 


I     V 


28 


THE  GUILD   STATE 


financial  **  advisers  " — which  seems  the  most 
discreet  term  for  a  somewhat  delicately  ambiguous 
relationship.  But  who  started  this  superstition? 
The  capitals  of  Europe  are  vastly  important  in 
the  eyes  of  the  people  who  write  newspapers — 
but  then  it  happens  that  these  valuable  journals 
are  so  often  the  property  of  the  aforesaid  ruling 
politicians  themselves.  Their  newspaper  bills 
announce  that  all  the  world  is  hanging  by  a  fine 
thread  on  a  decision  of  the  Cabinet  in  Downing 
Street,  or  the  signing  of  a  treaty  in  Paris.  But 
the  journahsts  are  part  owners,  part  servants  in 
this  great  governing  business;  and  when  they 
cry  the  virtues  of  its  Wares,  it  is  not  very  diff'erent 
from  what  appears  in  the  next  column,  where 
a  soap  manufacturer  advertises  that  his  soap  is 
the  best  in  the  world. 

But  the  highest  success  of  the  modern  system, 
as  a  piece  of  clever  advertising,  is  the  astounding 
statement  that  it  is  more  democratic  than  the 
mediaeval  system.  A  long  list  of  franchise 
victories  is  displayed  in  every  history  book, 
showing  how  one  class  after  another  has  been 
admitted  to  the  mystic  rites  of  the  ballot-box. 
Judging  by  the  results  so  far,  they  might  as  well 
have  been  allowed  to  vote  whether  the  aforesaid 
box  should  be  painted  black  or  white.  The 
mediaeval  man,  without  a  vote,  governed  himself 
more  freely  than  the  citizen  of  the  twentieth 
century,  with  his  share  in  universal  suffrage.  The 
very  slow-thinking  historical  dons  have  not  yet 
discovered   that   the   franchise   is   not   a   triumph 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


29 


of  democracy,  but  another  triumph— perhaps  their 
greatest — for  the  political  orators.  Every  name 
added  to  the  electors;'  list  has  been  another  victim 
for  the  all-powerful  centralized  governors  to 
fleece.  This  great  Reform  Act  of  191 8  has 
been  the  politicians'  trump  card  :  it  added  an 
odd  six  million  voters  to  the  list,  and  the  nation 
promptly  returned  the  largest  number  of 
plutocrats  and  political  adventurers  that  England 
has  seen.  One  prominent  question  was  that  of 
compulsory  military  service.  There  was  scarcely 
a  mediaeval  monarch  who  would  have  dared  to 
mention  such  a  thing.  A  Plantagenet  king  once 
asked  an  earl  to  fight  for  him  in  France.  The 
reply  was  scarcely  fit  for  sensitive  ears;  though 
it  so  pleased  the  mediaevalists  that  it  was  given 
to  the  earl  as  a  surname.  No  Stewart  king, 
in  his  haughtiest  moments,  ever  dared  to  claim 
a  fraction  of  the  power  that  living  democratic 
Cabinets  assume  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
pretence  of  democracy  in  the  modern  system  is 
the  greatest  bluff  in  history. 

Whereas  the  governing  factors  of  the  mediaeval 
system  were  something  organically  bound  up 
with  its  life,  being  the  almost  spontaneous  action 
of  that  life,  in  the  modern  period,  on  the 
contrary,  government  has  become  something 
much  more  external.  It  is  the  activity  of  the 
capital  cities,  not  the  work  of  the  people.  The 
central  interference  has  great — and  appalling — 
results;  but  it  remains  superficial,  because  it 
is  not  easy  to  change   the  nature  of  man  from 


i 


li 


n 


I 


i 


30 


THE    GUILD   STATE 


the  outside.  A  government  may  change  England 
from  a  pleasant  land  into  a  coaly ard  and  a 
dust-bin — which  would  seem  to  be  the  ideal 
of  the  present  governing  set — yet  at  heart  these 
barbarians  have  changed  very  little.  Take  the 
case  of  France,  perhaps  the  most  highly  central- 
ized State  in  the  world;  yet  the  French  peasant 
remains  much  as  he  has  been  for  centuries — 
the  most  substantial  fact  in  European  civiliza- 
tion, and  perhaps  its  highest  product. 

In  spite  of  this  modern  epidemic  of  politicians 
and  bureaucrats  bred  by  journalists,  it  is  still  a 
more  vital  social  act  to  build  a  house  than  to 
talk  high  political  theories.  The  ploughmen  and 
their  craft  are  still  a  greater  factor  in  life  than 
the  Cabinet  Minister  and  his  political  plans.  If 
then  the  organs  of  public  opinion  centre  round 
the  Minister  instead  of  the  ploughman,  it  is 
as  foolish  an  idea  as  if  the  Entente  armies  had 
concentrated  on  the  Spanish  frontier  while  the 
Germans  were  marshalling  in  Belgium  :  they 
would  simply — like  the  newspapers — have  been 
far  away  from  the  scene  of  action.  It  is  a 
somewhat  remarkable  fact  that  though  our 
modern  governors  and  their  ideas  have  reduced  a 
large  part  of  Europe  and  North  America  in 
particular,  and  the  world  in  general,  to  chaos  and 
disorder,  yet  they  have  had  little  more  effect 
on  humanity  than  if  they  were  infants  battering 
with  their  fists  in  the  hope  of  pushing  down 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  They  have  ruined  the 
pleasure  of  the   world,  as   they  have   ruined  so 


THE  HISTORICAL  BASIS 


31 


much  of  its  beauty;  the  modem  system  has 
stuck  a  knife  in  the  soul  of  the  native  arts,  and 
offered  us  instead  the  servile  affectations  of  its 
parasites  :  and  yet  man  to-day  still  knows  little 
but  the  wisdom  that  was  taught  him  by  his 
ancestors.  The  new  things  pass  over  his  head 
as  a  cloud  passes  over  a  wheat-field. 

The  persistent  continuity  of  the  human 
tradition  of  democratic  organization,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  central  government,  has  been 
brilliantly  stated  in  a  recent  article  ^  on  Russia. 
The  writer  therein  sums  up  his  conclusions  in 
the  following  sentence  :  "  The  society  of  Rome 
over  two  thousand  years  ago  was  the  society  of, 
at  any  rate.  Great  Russia  only  yesterday.  The 
mir  was  the  Roman  gens.''  He  quotes  a 
remarkable  prophecy  by  Sir  Henry  Maine  in 
his  Early.  History  of  Institutions  :  "  The  soil  of 
the  older  provinces  of  the  Russian  Empire  has 
been  from  time  immemorial  almost  exclusively 
distributed  among  groups  of  self-styled  kinsmen, 
collected  in  cultivating  village  communities,  self- 
organized  and  self-governed  .  .  .  and  it  is  one 
of  the  facts  with  which  the  Western  world  will 
some  day  assuredly  have  to  reckon.**  It  is 
interesting  that  the  leading  law  review  should 
maintain  that  this  great  upheaval  in  Russia, 
which  the  confused  newspaper  proprietors  seem 
to  rank  as  a  moment  of  temporary  anarchy,  is 
in  reality  based  on  a  legal  tradition  which  can 

»  The  Law  Quarterly  Review,  January  1919,  by  Mr.  J.  A. 
Strahan.  * 


1 1 


i  h 


11.  p 


It 


32 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


THE   HISTORICAL   BASIS 


33 


be  measured  by  the  thousand  years.  To  quote 
Mr.  Strahan  again  :  "  The  old  Roman  Common- 
wealth was  organized  politically  on  the  basis 
of  race,  and  concurrently  on  the  basis  of  collec- 
tive ownership;  the  very  principles  on  which 
the  Revolution  has  based  the  new  Russian 
Commonwealth."  ^ 

That  is  a  very  recent  and  a  very  dramatic 
example  of  the  main  idea  in  this  present  essay. 
For  it  is  an  attempt  to  show  that  what  we  too 
often  accept  as  an  essential  principle  of  human 
society  may  be  only  a  new-fangled  notion  when 
placed  beside  traditions  which  have  borne  the 
wear  and  tear  of  centuries.  To  prove  that  a 
thing  is,  new  is  by  no  means  to  prove  that  it 
is  wrong.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  chief  case 
against  the  modern  system  of  centralized  and 
political  government  is  not  that  it  is  new,  but 
rather  that  it  is  intolerably  unsuccessful.  No 
one  can  claim  that  the  older  system  had  no 
defects.  It  had  many — the  chief  of  these  being 
that  it  was  not  stable  enough  to  survive  for 
ever.  But  it  is  equally  impossible  to  deny 
that  the  older  system  produced  very  gorgeous 
successes.  A  social  organism  which  gave  us 
the  art  and  philosophy  of  Greece ;  the  miraculous 
beauty   of   the  stained   glass   of   Chartres;     and 

I  It  may  be  necessary  to  add  that  the  principles  of  the 
Russian  Revolution  are  very  probably  a  long,  long  way 
from  the  ideals  of  M.  Trotsky  and  his  Jewish  friends.  The 
thought  of  any  Jew  representing  Russia  can  arouse 
nothing  but  bitter  laughter  in  the  historical  mind. 


that  subtle  complexity  of  human  endeavour  which 
we  call  Florence  and  Padua  or  by  the  name  of 
a  hundred  old  cities ;  such  is  not  a  thing  which 
can  be  Hghtly  dismissed  when  it  dares  to  assert 
itself  against  a  modern  society  which  has  vomited 
up  Liverpool  and  Clapham.  The  case  must  be 
argued  on  its  merits,  in  detail;  but  prima 
facie,  it  is  suggested  that  the  judgment  is  not 
on  the  side  of  Clapham. 

But  therei  is  no  intention  to  argue  here  the 
case  historically.  That  must  be  left  to  the 
historians,  merely  begging  their  readers  to  con- 
sider the  facts,  and  to  disregard  the  wonderful 
erection  of  philosophical  deductions  which  most 
of  our  historical  dons  have  built  on  their  data. 
They  are^  as  much  obsessed  with  the  present 
moment  and  its  ideals  as  the  lightest-hearted 
lady  at  the  lightest  of  balls.  Were  they  only 
like  the  wise  butterflies,  who  flit  from  flower 
to  flower,  the  historians  might  realize  the  truth  ; 
but  in  truth  their  vision  would  not  reach  to  the 
end  of  Cyrano's  nose.  When  they  assume,  as 
they  almost  always  do,  that  a  great  centralized 
State  is  the  climax  of  national  and  imperialist 
endeavour,  one  wonders  if  they  have  ever  read 
that  most  exciting  of  romances,  the  tale  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  Perhaps  they  did  not  know 
it  was  serious  history;  for  it  is,  in  its  way, 
the  most  colossal  farce  that  was  ever  written. 
It  is  the  story  of  some  imperialists  (like 
the  ones  who  write  the  Morning  Post  and  the 
butlers  and  ladies'-maids  who   read  them)    who 

3 


; 


Ml 


.,  i 


\ 


'I 


11 


34 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


THE   HISTORICAL  BASIS 


35 


set  out  to  build  a  great  Empire.  They  collected 
into  their  central  hands  more  and  more  of  the 
government,  until  Rome  was  first  and  the  rest 
nowhere.  Then  the  great  farce  began.  The 
more  power  they  seized,  the  less  they  had  :  it 
was  Uke  filling  a  can  with  a  hole  in  it.  There 
was  a  mighty  wrestling  match  with  the  old 
Senate.  The  emperors  slew  the  senators  by 
the  hundred,  and  the  Senate  (merely  for  want 
of  emperors)  repHed  by  murdering  them  by  the 
half-dozen.  But  the  laughter  grows  louder  and 
louder  :  when  the  murdering  was  over,  neither 
the  emperors  nor  the  senators  had  won,  for 
a  vast  gang  of  bureaucrats  had  quietly  seized 
every  handle  of  the  governing  State;  and  the 
Roman  people  were  the  slaves  of  an  invisible 
power  whom'  they  could  not  even  put  to  the 
sword,  as  they  had  slain  their  emperors.  So 
Rome  perished  because  it  became  the  strongest 
government  in  the  world;  »  it  was  crushed  by 
barbarians  who  scarcely  knew  what  government 
meant.  But,  in  truth,  it  was  not  the  Teutons  who 
ruined  Rome  :  it  was  ruined  by  its  own  governors 
—the  bureaucrats;  as  the  British  Empire  will 
be   ruined. 

»  By  taking  the  Middle  Ages  as  the  most  convenient 
type  of  the  old  system,  one  has  been  precluded  from  more 
than  a  passing  reference  to  the  elaborate  Guild  system  of 
the  Roman  period.  The  State -controlled  collegia  of  the 
Empire  should  be  of  more  than  ordinary  interest  to  those 
national  guildsmen  who  do  not  yet  see  that  all  "  national  " 
organization  tends  to  become  bureaucratic. 


This  introductory  chapter  will  have  served 
its  purpose  if  it  arouses  a  healthy  suspicion 
that  what  is  has  not  always  been,  and  will  not 
always  be  hereafter.  It  is  the  learned  persons, 
who  accept  the  present  so  innocently,  who  are 
parochial  and  short-sighted.  It  is  the  simple 
who  seem  to  grasp  the  everlasting  traditions 
of  humanity.  It  is  the  university  professors  who 
are  so  often  sentimentalists;  it  is  often  the 
peasants  who  know  the  truth.  One  of  the  hopes 
of  the  Guild  system  is  that  it  will  replace  the 
confused  ideaUsts,  who  play  with  shadowy  fiction, 
and  put  in  their  place  some  harder-headed  people 
who  will  consider  the  facts. 


'    ; 


111 


I! 


Hi 


I      .! 


i 


-«*" 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE  :   ORGANIZATION 

BY    FUNCTION 


THERE  is  one  great  advantage  in  the  Guild 
system  when  it  comes  to  expounding  it.  It 
has  very  clear  general  principles  ;  and,  still 
better,  there  is  one  first  principle  which  stands 
out  by  itself,  beyond  any  possibility  of  misunder- 
standing. It  may  be  right  or  wrong— but  at 
least  it  is  very  definite  and  obvious.  This  first 
principle  is  the  following  :  The  key  to  social 
structure  under  the  guilds  is  organization  on  the 
basis  of  function  ;  the  citizens  will  be  organized 
in  the  groups  of  their  trades  and  occupations  ; 
not  primarily  in  their  parishes  or  parliamentary 
constituencies.  To  a  great  extent,  this  organi- 
zation has  already  a  large  place  in  modern 
societies.  Thus,  the  shareholders  of  a  tea  planta- 
tion com'pany  may  be  described  superficially  as 
organized  on  their  basis  of  function  as  tea  pro- 
ducers. Again,  the  cotton  operatives,  organized 
as  a  trade  union,  may  still  more  justly  be  said 
to  be  grouped  by  their  function  of  producing 
cotton  cloth.  The  teachers  of  a  university  are 
a  united  body  because  of  their  common  function 
of  producing  learning  and  wisdom.  The  doctors 
are  grouped  by  function  in  their  Medical  Associa- 
tion ;  likewise  the  lawyers  in  their  Inns  of  Court 
and  Incorporated  Society.  In  short,  as  already 
suggested   in    the   first    chapter,    the    system   of 

86 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


37 


organization  by  function  is  deeply  rooted  in  all 
human  society. 

'  The  Guild  system,  then,  does  not  put  forward 
any  new  principle  ;  the  distinctiveness  of  its 
theory  is  in  the  emphasis  it  gives  to  it.  The 
guildsmen  claim  that  organization  by  function 
or  trade  is  by  far  the  most  vital  link  in  the 
social  structure  ;  and  that  all  other  human  links 
are  very  secondary  beside  it.  Other  social  bonds 
there  are,  and  many  ;  but  all  of  them  are  most 
clearly  subordinate  to  the  vastly  superior  im- 
portance of  organization  of  mankind  by  profession 
and  trade. 

There  are  very  few  hard  lines  in  nature  ; 
classification  is  not  so  much  a  fact  as  a  con- 
venience. Science  does  not  state  laws  because 
they  always  exist,  but  rather  because  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  universe  must  somehow  or  other  be 
made  comprehensible  to  the  limited  human  mind. 
And  thus  it  must  be  realized  that  no  classification 
of  men  can  be  perfectly  precise.  How  many 
human  beings  are  there  who  could  be  correctly 
described  in  terms  of  race?  We  may,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  quite  well  describe  a  man 
as  English,  Irish  or  French  ;  but  our  classifica- 
tion would  look  childishly  absurd  if  we  dug  to 
the  root  of  his  family  tree.  The  man  whom  we, 
quite  wisely,  decide  to  call  a  typical  Englishman, 
is  often  the  product  of  half  the  races  of  mankind. 
So  classification  is  for  convenience ;  and  we  must 
remember  that  rule  when  we  classify  men  by 
their    trades. 


33 


I         ;  '(I 


38 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


36 


\ 


As  organization  is  the  very  basis  of  society, 
in  laying  down  its  rules  we  must  come  to  some 
decision  on  the  principle  to  be  followed. 
Heine's  charming  flower  girl  in  Paris  classified 
her  blooms  according  to  their  scents;  and  the 
poet  added  that  he  had  some  reason  to  believe 
that  she  also  classified  men  by  the  same  rule. 
One  can  imagine  an  artist  grouping  mankind 
by  the  laws  of  beauty  ;  a  professor  might  herd 
them  by  their  powers  of  reason;  an  hotel- 
keeper  by  their  ability  to  pay  for  his  most 
expensive  rooms;  and  a  politician  by  their 
capacity  for  accepting  promises  instead  of  ful- 
filment. 

The  guildsman,  while  recognizing  all  these 
classifications  and  the  advantages  thereof,  main- 
tains that  there  is  one  method  of  arrangement 
which  is  infinitely  more  useful  :  to  wit,  the 
classification  by  function.  But  even  here  one 
must  recognize  at  the  start  that  the  lines  must  be 
vague  to  a  certain  degree.  A  postman  may 
grow  his  own  vegetables;  a  draper  may  keep 
bees;  an  insurance  agent  may  keep  a  shop,  and 
colonels  may  get  trade  commissions  from  their 
wine  merchants.  But  for  the  normal  man  or 
woman  it  is  fairly  easy  to  pick  out  one  occupation 
which  is  the  chief  business  of  life.  The  Guild 
system  maintains  that  the  chief  business  is  the 
central  fact  in  the  life  of  that  citizen;  and  his 
relations  with  his  fellow-men  must  be  largely 
determined  by  it.  It  is  of  only  inferior  interest 
to    know    that    a    citizen    lives    in    one    borough 


or  another,  in  one  county  or  another,  in  which 
he  is  registered  as  a  parliamentary  or  local 
government  voter.  It  is  possible  that  it  may  even 
be  necessary  under  a  Guild  system,  to  keep  the 
present  poHtical  classifications  by  area;  but  the 
point  here  emphasized  is  the  exceptional  impor- 
tance of  the  functional  classifications  iby  trade,  and 
the  comparative  insignificance  of  all  other 
classifications,  whether  by  political  areas  or  by 
colour  of  the  hair.  There  are  feW  absolute  laws 
in   life— it  is   almost  entirely  a  matter  of  their 

emphasis.  ' 

Of  all  classifications  of  man,  the  most  violent 
contrast  is  that  between  the  area  theory  of  the 
poUticians  and  the  functional  theory  of  the 
guildsmen,.  They  are  at  opposite  poles.  The 
division  of  citizens  into  geographical  areas  for 
the  purpose  of  parliamentary  representation  was 
an  idea  which,  looking  back,  one  can  now  see 
growing  up  more  or  less  by  accident,  and 
certainly  only  for  a  very  limited  purpose,  as 
was  discussed  in  the  first  chapter.  A  few 
moments'  consideration  of  this  classification  by 
postal  address  will  show  how  superficial  it  is. 
No  one  denies  that  there  is  a  certain  common 
bond  between  men  because  they  are  next-door 
neighbours.  They  are  interested  in  the  same 
postman  and  poUceman  :  they  share  the 
same  drain-pipes  and  the  same  Water-supply. 
Admitted.  But  none  of  these  common  bonds 
concerns  a  vital  principle  in  the  man's  life,  on 
which  his  citizenship   can  be  reasonably  based. 


. 


40 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  FIRST   PRINCIPLE 


41 


At  present  a  citizen  rises  (in  theory)  to  his  highest 
expression  of  citizenship  when  he  elects  the 
parHamentary  member  for  his  borough  or  county. 
The  guildsman*s  case  is  that  it  is  absurd  that 
such  an  all-important  function  should  be  based 
on  nothing  more  vital  than  living  in  the 
same  street  or  the  next  village.  Heine's  flower 
girl  had  really  a  more  intellectual  case. 

But  it  is  the  less  necessary  to  argue  the 
theoretical  case  for  political  organization  by  area, 
because  its  clear  failure  in  practice  alone  rules 
it  outside  the  schemes  of  intelligent  beings. 
Pohticians  elected  by  area  to  do  the  work  of 
the  nation,  very  obviously  do  not  do  that  work. 
It  is  not  done  at  all,  or  it  is  done  very  badly. 
If  even  a  perfect  theory  works  altogether  im- 
perfectly it  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  useless 
for  worldly  men  and  women.  But  it  is  strange 
that  any  one  ever  imagined  that  this  political 
system  could  work.  What  human  being  has 
yet  appeared  who  could  reasonably  promise  to 
represent  the  most  varied  desires  and  grievances 
of  the  ten  or  twenty  thousand  electors  who 
inhabit  his  political  area?  Even  if  his  honest 
desire  to  accomplish  the  work  did  not  fail,  it 
is  all  too  clear  that  the  cubic  capacity  of  his 
brain  was  not  designed  for  any  such  colossal 
task.  Half  the  poUtical  adventurers  in  parlia- 
ment who  fail  to  represent  their  constituents 
have  really  the  very  reasonable  excuse  that 
an  archangel  alone  would  suffice.  iWhen  they 
set    out     for     Westminster,     they    might     plead 


that    they    were    being    sent    on    a    wild-goose 
chase. 

Then  there  is  the  electors*  side  which  is  equally 
bound  for  failure.  How  is  it  possible  that  the 
normal  citizen  could  choose  by  the  crude  parlia- 
mentary system  the  right  man  for  his  purposes? 
Even  assuming  that  such  an  encyclopaedic  creature 
existed,  how  could  the  voter  find  the  man?  We 
know,  as  a  matter  of  practice,  he  rarely  does; 
but  the  point  for  the  moment  is,  how  could  we 
expect  him  to  do  so  ?  Sometimes  a,  parliamentary 
candidate  is  a  local  man  :  at  the  best  a  mere 
fraction  of  the  electors  have  any  real  knowledge 
of  his  intellect  or  his  morals.  He  may  promise 
the  right  programme,  and  he  may  intend  to 
fulfil  that  promise.  In  fifty  per  cfent.  of  the 
cases,  both  his  programme  and  his  intentions  are 
defective;  and  the  astounding  thing  is  that  the 
individual  electors  seem  quite  unable  to  find 
better  candidates — such  is  the  cumbersomeness 
of  the  parliamentary  system.  That  is  probably 
the  main  reason  why  the  politicians  have  survived 
so  long  :  they  are  entrenched  behind  a  maze  of 
political  rules  to  prevent  democratic  attack.  The 
elections  are  usually  fought  on  issues  of  slight 
importance;  or  those  of  which  the  average 
elector  has  no  knowledge  sufficient  to  affect  his 
judgment;  or,  again,  the  issues  may  be  so  com- 
pUcated  and  conflicting  that  neither  electors  nor 
elected  know  much  about  them. 

That  is  perhaps  the  main  weakness  of  the  parlia- 
mentary system.     It  deals  with  matters  beyond 


ii 


:  ! 

,       r 
I      I 


42 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


43 


its  grasp,  beyond  the  grasp  of  everybody  except 
experts  on  the  subject  concerned.  The  parUa- 
mentary  system  might  be  all  right  if  it  could  per- 
form a  first-class  miracle — ^master  the  knowledge 
of  the  world  and  translate  it  into  legislation.  We 
must  not  be  angry  with  Westminster  for  failing  to 
perform  the  impossible  :  but  we  must  rebuke  it 
for  even  trying.  A  thousand  subjects  are  put 
under  the  control  of  men  selected  by  a  dis- 
organized mob  of  electors,  with  no  common 
desires  or  common  knowledge.  The  politician 
by  appealing  to  everybody  is  able  to  escape  being 
bound  to  anything.  In  the  hubbub  of  public  life 
he  dodges  the  necessity  for  reason.  The  poli- 
tician survives  by  reliance  on  the  ignorance  of  his 
constituents. 

Now  there  is  one  department  of  life  where 
it  is  more  difficult  to  be  evasive.  If  a  m^n  has 
any  exact  knowledge  at  all,  it  is  on  the  subject 
of  his  daily  work.  If  the  business  placed  before 
a  meeting  were  to  discuss  the  cotton  trade, 
and  legislate  for  it,  it  is  more  than  probable 
that  the  cotton  operative  and  the  factory,  manager 
would  have  very  definite  minds  of  their  own 
•as  to  what  should  be  done  or  left  undone.  The 
candidate  could  not  escape  the  point  by  discussing 
the  condition  of  the  Hottentots  or  the  necessity 
for  reforming  the  music  hall,  or  a  foreign  policy 
for  Timbuctoo.  To  be  tied  down  to  cotton  might 
lead  that  politician  to  disaster.  Hence,  perhaps, 
his  frantic  desire  to  get  as  many  subjects  as 
possible  within  the  scope  of  Parliamentary  debate. 


A  man's  work  is  both  his  first  interest  and 
his  greatest  knowledge.  It  is  by  far  the  strongest 
link  with  his  fellow-men— in  a  material  sense, 
that  is;  and  matter  has  a  very  great  deal  to 
do  with  the  spirit.  If  the  nation  were  grouped 
into  its  trades  rather  than  within  its  geographical 
areas,  it  would  then  be  organized  on  the  main 
principles  of  interest  and  knowledge.  The  trade 
unit  would  be  the  most  compact  and  the  best 
informed  about  its  own  affairs.  Without  for 
the  moment  discussing  the  theoretical  side  any 
further,  it  Will  be  useful  to  consider  how  it  might 
work  out  in  practice  if  the  citizens  of  a  nation 
were  primarily  organized  on  the  basis  of  their 
trades  or  occupations.  Let  us  glance  at  the 
possibilities. 

Coal-mining  is  a  comparatively  simple  case. 
It  is  a  very  definite  trade  :  it  is  not  seasonal  or 
merging  into  other  work;  though  it  may  be  at 
first  sight  a  little  difficult  to  know  whether  the 
men  who  drive  the  engines  of  the  pits  are  miners 
or  engineers.  But  when  one  speaks  of  the  Coal 
Industry  the  term  denotes  a  fairly  definite  class. 
Let  us  assume  that  before  the  miners  concerned 
themselves  with  political  matters  (as  Westminster 
understands  them)  they  were  first  organized  as  a 
Guild  of  Coal-miners.  After  all,  what  more 
important  function  of  a  public  kind  do  the  miners 
perform?  Surely  the  digging  of  coal  is  the  very 
essence  of  their  work  for  the  State.  If  the 
nation  desires  that  coal  should  be  dug  (it  is  a 
dirty   trade,    but   that   is   not    the   point   for   the 


Ui 


44 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE   FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


45 


'  1 


moment),  then  who  is  more  capable  of  legislating 
for  it,  and  controlling  the  digging,  than  the 
miners?  It  may  be  suggested  that  the  miners 
would  only  consider  their  own  interests — the 
argument  being  based  on  the  knowledge  that 
the  present  capitalist  traders,  who  control 
industry,  consider  little  else  but  their  personal 
interests.  So  that  objection  has  Httle  weight  : 
for  at  the  worst  it  Would  be  better  that  the  self- 
interests  of  many  miners  were  considered  than 
the   interests   of  a   few   coal-owners. 

The  essence  of  the  scheme  would  b€i  that  the 
digging  of  coal,  as  a  national  industry,  would 
then  be  controlled  by  the  united  body  of  the 
coal-miners,  grouped  into  what  may  be  con- 
veniently termed  a  guild.  That  word  is  used 
instead  of  "  company  "  or  **  association,"  or 
analogous  terms,  because  it  is  desired  to  insist 
energetically  on  the  fact  that  this  is  a  group  of 
the  actual  workers — whether  managers  or  pit 
boys,  clerks  or  hewers,  checkers  or  engineers — 
in  distinction  from  a  "company,"  for  instance; 
which  is  in  the  main  a  collection  of  shareholders, 
who  have  invested  money,  but  whose  work  does 
not  go  beyond  attending  the  annual  meeting. 
A  director  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  manage- 
ment would,  for  the  purpose  of  this  present 
argument,  come  under  the  head  of  managing 
staff.  The  exact  functions  of  this  guild,  its 
scope  and  its  subordination  to  the  State  will  be 
discussed  later.  For  the  moment  we  are  con- 
cerned in  visualizing  the  appearance  of  a  nation 


whose   primary  organization   is   on   the   basis   of 
trades. 

Let  us  turn  to  a  very  different  kind  of  work; 
the    profession    of    teaching.       This    is,    broadly 
speaking,  just  as  much  a  productive  industry  as 
coal-mining.       It   is   the   business   of   miners  to 
produce  coal  ;    it  is  the  function  of  teachers  to 
produce  educated  pupils.     The  same  arguments 
apply  with  remarkable  closeness.       It  is  a  very 
skilled  work,  Hke  the  digging  of  coal;     and  the 
people  who  know  most  about  it  are  the  teachers 
and  experts  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
study  of  the  craft— just  as  scientists  who  devote 
themselves  to  the  technical  processes  of  mining 
would  be  included   in   the   mining   guild.       The 
grouping  of  educationalists  into  a  guild  (or  rather 
into   many    guilds,    as    will   be    discussed   later) 
would  be  as  practicable  a  piece  of  public  organ- 
ization as  the  case  of  the  miners.      In  such  a 
body  as  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Universities  we 
already  have  something  well  on  the  way  to  the 
Guild  form.     The  schools  of  each  county  council, 
both  primary  and  secondary,  might  be  grouped 
into  guilds  containing  all  the  teaching  staff,  the 
heads   and  the  assistants,   perhaps  down   to   the 
laboratory   bottle-cleaners.      As  in    the   case   of 
the    miners,    the    body    to    whom    questions    of 
education    would    be    primarily    referred    would 
be  the  Guilds  of  Teachers. 

The  case  of  Railways  is  a  fairly  simple  one; 
and  the  guild  would  include  the  whole  of  the 
directors  and  staff  down  to  the  humblest  porter 


& 

i 

I 


46 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


at  the  smallest  country  station.  Forgetting  their 
present  method  of  sitting  at  Westminster— 
whether  as  directors  and  shareholders  or  as 
trade  union  secretaries— the  railwaymen  would 
first  and  foremost  think  of  themselves  as 
members,  and  therefore  electors,  of  the  Guild 
of  Railways;  and  they  would  be  primarily 
responsible  for  the  management  of  the  rail- 
roads. 

Again  with  the  Doctors  and  Lawyers.       The 
latter  are  already  a  guild  of  a  fairly  complete 
kind.      They    have   almost    complete   control   of 
their   profession     as    against     the     State;       and 
internally    the    Bar    Council    is    ejected    by    the 
members  of  the  profession.      Those  who  hastily 
say  that  the  Guild  systemj  is  absurd,  must  first 
of  all  explain  how  it  is  that  this  great  absurdity 
has  existed  for  so  many  long  centuries.     It  is 
fair  to  confess  that  a  shiall  and  somewhat  uniform 
profession    like    the    law    has    many    advantages 
over   such   a   diverse   trade   as   engineering,    for 
example,     or    mining,     with     their    innumerable 
grades  of  labour.     The  case  of  the  Doctors  is 
very  similar  to  the  Lawyers  :    they  likewise  have 
already   something   very   near   the   Guild   form; 
and  if  they  also  were  endowed  with  the  Guild 
functions,  the  whole  matter  of  public  health  would 
be  placed  in  the   hands  of   the   Medical  Guilds 
for   legislation    and   administration,    and   not    be 
committed    to    the    care    of    very    inexperienced 
gentlemen  at  Westminster.     The  Doctors  would 
be   given    the   task   of   producing   good   health, 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


47 


as  the  Miners  would  have  the  job  of  producing 

coal. 

Without  going  through  the  list  of  the  re- 
cognized industries,  it  is  necessary  to  consider 
how  far  the  Guild  system  would  cover  the  nation 
as  a  whole.  The  cotton  trade,  iron,  wool,  ship- 
building, and  so  on,  are  all  simple  cases.  But 
other  cases  are  not  so  obvious.  The  Retail  Shop- 
keepers might  find  it  necessary  to  form  a  guild 
apart  from  the  trade  producing  their  goods; 
or  they  might  be  included  in  the  producing 
guild  itself.  Thus  the  coal  merchants  would, 
under  the  latter  alternative,  be  members  of  the 
Coal-mining  Guild.  But  it  cannot  be  said  too 
emphatically  that  one  of  the  many  virtues  of 
the  Guild  idea  is  that  it  allows  of  more  varieties 
than  fixed  principles.  Guiding  principles  there 
are,  and  they  are  a  rigid  framework;  but  they 
are  a  constructional  framework  allowing^  of  many 
kinds  of  decorations.  And  so  it  is  in  this  case 
of  the  retail  shopkeeper.  It  is  possible  that  retail 
trade  might  take  the  form  of  largie  general  stores, 
such  as  we  find  at  present  in  the  big  towns,  or 
the  small  general  stores  of  the  villages.  A 
distributing  guild  would  be  a  perfectly  sensible 
part  of  a  society  organized  by  functions. 

But  there  are  the  odd  nooks  and  crannies  of 
a  State — which  sometimes,  perchance,  are  the 
most  precious  of  it  all.  To  what  purpose  should 
we  become  a  perfectly  organized  industrial 
community  if  we  ceased  to  become  the  home  of 
poets  and  musicians  and  dreamers?     Life  as.  a 


IS* 


48 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


49 


time  to  be  always  serious  and  productive,  is 
nothing  but  a  plutocratic  nightmare.  There  are 
some  who  are  only  well  employed  when  they 
are  doing  nothing^ — nothing  at  least  that  could 
be  registered  on  a  pay  sheet  or  approved  by  an 
overseer.  The  tramp  may  be  the  wisest  of  men  : 
just  as  the  anarchist  may  have  discovered  more 
of  the  laws  of  governing  than  the  bureaucrat. 
But,  to  put  the  question  precisely  :  Will  there  be 
a  Guild  of  Poets,  and  one  of  Musicians,  and  of 
Philosophers,  and  of  Idle  Dreamers?  As  for  the 
musicians,  in  the  sense  of  performers  in  an 
orchestra,  it  is  fairly  obvious  that  there  will  be  : 
for  an  orchestra  itself  has  the  necessary  cohesion 
and  unity  :    it  is  itself  a  guild  in  embryo. 

But  a  Guild  of  Composers  is  a  very  different 
matter.  Composers  do  not  do  their  work  by 
gathering  together  in  concert  halls  and  band- 
stands. Shubert  wrote  some  of  his  best  songs 
by  sitting  in  taverns,  not  With  his  fellow-com- 
posers, but  with  very  riotous  persons  who  had 
a  keener  taste  for  alcohol  than  for  scoring  music. 
Likewise  with  poets;  there  is  a,  probably 
erroneous,  tradition  that  they  frequent  moonlit 
shores  and  sunny  forest  glades,  proceedings 
which  it  would  be  difficult,  perhaps,  to  regulate 
by  Guild  rules;  while  in  the  matter  of  output, 
the  merits  of  a  poem  cannot  be  tested  as  one 
would  test  steel  or  cotton  cloth.  Far  be  it  from 
asserting  that  the  thing  cannot  be  done,  or  that 
it  is  unwise  to  try.  Poets,  who  in  real  life  are 
so  often  the  most  businesslike  and  practical  of 


creatures,  may  well  be  able  to  reduce  their  subtle 
craft  to  precise  rules—after  all,  it  is  only  a 
stupid  bureaucrat  who  makes  clumsy  regulations 
which  will  not  fit  the  facts.  And  so  with  the 
stray  philosophers.  There  are  not  many  "  philo- 
sophers *'  pure  and  simple,  and  they  will  be 
mainly  attached  to  the  various  university  staffs, 
as  they  are  to-day.  Probably  the  dreamer  and 
thinker  will  link  up  with  the  tramps  and  other 
men  of  unshackled  leisure,  and  freedom  from 
business  hours.  But  that  is  a  subject  which  is 
better  left  in  the  lap  of  the  gods. 

Briefly,  there  is  not  much  that  is  healthy  in 
a     national     Hfe     which     cannot     be     collected 
coherently    within    the    Guild    form.      For    the 
production  of  wealth,  from  a  steel-steamship  to  a 
lyric,   is    assisted,    rather   than   retarded,    by    the 
collective  effort  of  the  producers.     It  is  at  least 
arguable  that  the  Guild  labour  which  produced 
the  great  mediaeval  cathedrals  did  a  greater  work 
than  was  ever  done  by  all  the  self-centred  artists 
and  novelists  who  produce  secretly  in  their  studies 
and  studios.     But,  at  the  least,  the  vast  bulk  of 
the  work  that  is  necessary  for  a  nation's  health 
and  wealth  can  be  produced  under  co-operative 
guilds  as  easily  as  under  capitaHst   companies. 
All  that  is  left  outside  can  be  safely  committed 
to   that   kindly   fate    which,   in    truth,    settles   so 
many  of  the  affairs  of  human  life.    If  the  poet  and 
ardst  can  survive  in  the  hideousness  and  callous- 
ness of  the  plutocrats'   world,  certainly  he   will 
have  a  better  chance  in  a  world  whose  essence 


M 


50 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


THE   FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


51 


will  be  the  placing  of  happiness  and'  beauty  before 
banking  accounts.  When  did  the  arts  and  crafts 
ever  touch  so  high  as  during  the  age  of  mediaeval 

guilds? 

Now  the  primary  advantage  of  a  system  of 
organization  by  guilds  will  be  that  the  arrange- 
ment of  national  life  will  be  on  the  basis  of 
essential  work.  The  nation  will  become  a  machine 
organized  for  doing  the  nation's  Work.  Instead 
of  an  industrial  system  which  is  not  merely 
anarchical  in  the  opinion  of  the  labour  agitator, 
but  is  chaotic  in  hard  fact,  we  should  have  a 
society  based  on  its  natural  units,  like  a  well- 
classified  library,  a  well-arranged  stores;  where 
the  Hbrarians  and  assistants  can  put  their  hand 
at  once  on  what  is  demanded.  That  is  the  real 
case  for  organization  by  function,  by  trade  and 
occupation  :  it  is  a  natural  classification  based 
on  facts.  Every  normal  unit  of  the  State  would 
be  organized  as  a  citizen  in  regard  to  his  main 
responsibility  and  knowledge.  He  would  be 
considered  primarily  as  an  expert ;  and  his  chief 
civil  duty  would  be  to  do  that  which  he  really 
could  do. 

For  example,  it  is  only  a  farce  asking  the 
average  man  to  give  a  decision  concerning  our 
relations  with  the  South  Sea  Islands,  when  he 
has  never  seen  the  South  Seas,  their  islands,  or 
their  islanders,  at  any  closer  range  than  a  Conrad 
romance.  He  may  have,  ultimately,  to  come  to 
some  decision  on  these  matters,  but  it  will  have 
to   t)e    as   a   by-road   in    public    life.      Whereas, 


under  the  present  system,  a  ^whole  general  election 
may  turn  on  one  of  these  mysterious  political 
problems;  and  the  government  for  the  next  six 
years  may  be  chosen  on  the  question  whether 
Persia  should  have  a  parliamentary  system  or 
a  benevolent  despotism.  So  far  as  Englishmen 
are  concerned,  they  might  as  well  vote  on  a 
constitution  for  the  ichthyosaurus.  The  Guild  idea 
is  an  endeavour  to  bring  us  back  to  reality;  to 
base  our  social  life  on  essential  facts  (such  as 
the  production  of  corn  and  good  music),  instead 
of  asking  our  legislators  to  amuse  themselves 
— and  bore  us — with  the  vaguest  of  generalities. 

Under  a  Guild  system,  the  citizen  would  be 
asked  to  decide  what  he  knew  something  ^bout  : 
a  coal-miner  would  be  asked  to  control  the 
mines,  not  the  political  constitution  of  Russia. 
How  this  would  affect  our  relations  with  Russia, 
that  is,  who  would  constitute  the  Foreign  Office 
Guild,  if  any,  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter. 
It  is  only  maintained  here,  that  as  all  social 
classifications  must  be  somewhat  arbitrary,  we 
must  select  that  which  is  based  on  the  most 
essential  factors;  and,  surely,  the  production 
of  wealth  is  the  chief  material  work  of  man, 
and  his  trade  is  his  most  natural  and  most 
effective  organ  of  government.  If  one  can  fall 
to  generalities,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Guild 
system  in  action  would  be  the  nation  in  battle 
array — every  man  at  his  post. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  citizens  in 
general,    the    Guild    system    would    possess    the 


52 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


THE  FIRST   PRINCIPLE 


53 


advantage  of  allowing  quick  reference  of  any 
difficulty  to  the  most  expert  advice.  There  is 
a  threatened  shortage  of  corn,  for  example.  To 
whom  could  one  refer  the  problem  to-day?  To 
the  Board  of  Agriculture?  It  could  only  set 
in  action  machinery  for  passing  on  the  question 
to  the  landlord,  the  farmer,  and  the  peasant ;  in 
short,  the  Board  could  "merely  act  .  as  a 
middleman.  It  would  be  useless  to  go  to  the 
landlords,  or  to  the  farmers,  or  to  the  labourers 
separately  and  directly,  because  in  the  matter  of 
corn  production  they  are  now  merely  one 
element  in  a  complicated  industry.  Neither  could 
speak  for  the  others.  Of  course  the  facts  could 
be  gradually  collected  from  these  various 
sources ;  and  eventually  the  Board  of  Agriculture 
could  make  a  solemn  report.  But  a  report 
does  not  necessarily  grow  corn;  the  heart  of 
the  problem  would  still  remain.  Now  if  all 
the  producers  wfere  already  linked  in  a  guild, 
the  procedure  would  be  infinitely  simplified. 

A  Guild  report  would  be  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  workers  in  the  industry.  There 
might  be  a  dissenting  minority  :  until  the  popula- 
tion of  the  world  is  reduced  btelow  three,  there 
will  probably  always  be  a  dissenting  minority; 
and  the  last  two  will  probably  have  to  toss  for 
a  decision  when  they  no  longer  can  discover 
a  chairman  with -a  casting  vote.  Such  is  the 
inevitable  waywardness  of  mankind.  But  so 
long  as  the  majority  decision  is  accepted,  there 
is  no  better  form  than  the  guild  for  getting  the 


best  advice  in  the  quickest  way.  There  is  so 
much  more  Ukely  to  be  unity  amongst  members 
who  all  know  (more  or  less)  the  facts  of  the 
case  in  dispute.  If  they  differ,  it  will  be  on  a 
matter  that  is  ideally  hard  to  decide;  whereas 
to-day  a  parhament  splits  itself  up  into  parties 
which  are  usually  only  fighting  shadows. 

Such,  in  bare  outline,  is  the  essential  principle 
of  the  Guild  method  of  organizing  the  nation.  In 
selecting  the  function  of  production — ^in  its  widest 
sense,  which  may  include  every  form  of  wealth, 
from  a  coal-scuttle  and  a  match  to  a  song  or  a 
poem — this  idea  goes  no  further  than  an  assertion 
that  this  is  the  most  convenient  factor  to  select. 
It  must  not  be  imagined  that  any  reasonable 
person  thinks  that  this  is  the  only  possible  or 
necessary  classification.  There  may  be  a  need 
for  several  systems,  even  running  side  by  side. 
A  man  will  be  a  doctor  and  therefore  a  member 
of  his  Guild  of  Medicine;  but  as  a  cricketer  he 
will  be  a  member  of  the  cricket  club;  as  an 
amateur  actor,  a  member  of  the  dramatic  asso- 
ciation; as  a  politician  he  may  join  a  Society 
for  the  Abolition  of  the  Guilds ;  as  a  philosopher 
he  may  join  the  Pragmatic  Clique;  while  during 
his  summer  holiday  he  will  appear  in  Switzerland 
under  the  ensign  of  the  Alpine  Club. 

It  is  all-important  to  get  this  aspect  of  the 
matter  firmly  in  the  mind.  There  is  no  narrow 
dogmatism  about  the  Guild  idea.  It  is  not  a 
despotism.  It  does  not  attempt,  with  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  new  district  visitor,  to  clean  all  the 


i       ! 


II 


54 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


THE  FIRST  PRINCIPLE 


55 


dark  corners  of  our  homes  and  lives.  In  reality 
it  attempts  no  more  than  arranging  the  affairs 
of  our  daily  work.  The  one  thing  it  does  assert 
with  some  dogmatism  is  that,  from  the  public 
point  of  view,  there  is  nothing  more  important 
than  this  work;  and  that  it  is  the  most  con- 
venient basis  on  which  we  can  set  ourselves  as 
a  nation.  There  are  expansive  politicians,  often 
with  a  mysterious  craving  for  high  finance  and 
kindred  recreations,  who  make  great  speeches 
about  the  British  Empire,  or  those  Who  have 
very  gorgeous  ideas  concerning  the  Federation 
of  the  World.  The  guildsman  is  not  necessarily 
opposed;  but  he  cannot  sometimes  restrain  a 
rather  impatient  turn  of  the  shoulders  :  **  Yes, 
I  know,  perhaps,  perhaps  .  .  .  but  just  a 
moment,  please,  while  we  work  out  a  system  by 
which  we  can  first  get  several  rather  important 
affairs  in  working  order.  You  won't  be  able 
to  voyage  round  your  delightful  Empire  until 
the  coal  is  dug;  or  until  somebody  builds  you 
a  ship;  and  you  might  starve  even  with  an 
Empire  at  your  feet,  unless  somebody  remem- 
bered to  grow  corn.  Indeed,  this  Empire  of 
yours  is  really  a  matter  for  our  spare  hours  and 
hoUday  dreams.  It  is  almost  a  luxury;  which 
can  only  be  produced  after  the  day's  work  is 
done." 

That  is  the  guildsman's  attitude  to  all  the 
other  alluring  dreams  of  social  construction;  to 
all  the  great  adventures  of  the  human  race.  He 
is  not  unsympathetic;    he  merely  says  they  must 


come  in  their  due  order  of  importance.  He  is 
simple-minded  enough  to  listen  to  all  those  village 
sayings  about  the  horse  coming  before  the  cart, 
and  the  ^ood  reasons  for  walking  before  one 
runs.  He  does  not  profess  to  be  very  philoso- 
phical; but  he  does  pride  himself  on  his 
common  sense.  He  thinks  it  is  common  sense 
to  produce  a  well-built  house  before  he  produces 
an  Empire  :  he  is  quite  ready  to  listen  to  those 
tales  of  Eldorado  with  their  promises  of  the 
wealth  of  the  Indies  to  deck  his  house  when 
built.  But  he  thinks  it  will  be  safer  to  organize 
as  a  guild  of  house  builders,  rather  than  on  the 
more  illusive  basis  of  Eldorado. 

He  may  be  short-sighted,  or  worse  still,  a 
coward.  But  the  long-sighted  people  have  dis- 
appointed us  so  often,  while  the  brave  men  have 
sacrificed  so  many  other  men's  lives  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  windy  ideals  and  bankers' 
paradises.  So  the  very  hard-headed  guildsman 
has  grown  a  Httle  sceptical ;  and  has  suppressed 
his  cravings  for  romance.  He  turns  rather 
longingly  to  those  old  days  when,  instead  of 
building  Empires  and  fortunes  for  plutocrats,  mien 
were  content  if  they  earned  their  own  livings  at 
their  own  trades.  Of  course  it  is  unselfish  to 
make  fortunes  for  other  men;  and  the  most 
gigantic  unselfishness  was  when  the  poor  men 
of  England  builded  an  Empire  to  enrich  their 
masters.  However,  there  are  signs  of  the  growth 
of  self;  and  when  it  reaches  the  unselfish 
workers  they   will  be   more  interested   in  their 


1 


56 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


own  workshops  than  in  other  people's  Empires. 
The  turning  of  our  ideals  to  the  workshops  will 
lead  very  quickly  to  the  need  for  the  guilds. 

For  the  guilds  will  be  the  organization  of  the 
nation  in  its  daily  work;  and  the  end  of  that 
loose  thinking  which  the  newspapers  now  call 
"politics." 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    SECOND    PRINCIPLE  :     SELF- 
MANAGEMENT 

THE   last  chapter  has  looked  at   the   guilds 
from  the  outside  :    we  have  merely  gazed 
at  their  facades,  as  country  cousins  gaze  at  the 
dome  of  St.  Paul's.     We  have,  so  far,  no  know- 
ledge  of   their  construction.      The   fundamental 
reason  for  the  Guild  system  is  that  it  organizes 
the  people  in  the  order  of  their  trades,  whereby 
the  work  of  the  community  can  be  done  by  those 
who    best    know   how   to    do    it.      Therefore,    it 
naturally   follows    that   when   once   the    guild    is 
constituted,  its  affairs  must  be,  in  the  main,  con- 
trolled   by    the   guild    members;     otherwise    the 
advantage  of  expert  management  would  be  lost. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  a 
guild  which  did  its  work  under  a  fairly  complete 
control    by    an    external    body.      For    example, 
it  could  be  managed  by  a  State  department  in 
Whitehall,  where  all  the  rules  might  be  drafted; 
and  from  which  the  inspectors  would   come   to 
see  that  those  rules  were  obeyed.      The  guilds- 
men  under  such  a  system  would  be  the  servants 
of    a    superior   body    over    which    they    had   no 
control,   just   as  there   are  now  the   servants   of 
comparatively   uncontrolled   capitalists.      Or   the 
guilds,   when   formed,  might   be  put   under   the 
management    of    a    controlling    trade    council; 
whereby  they  would  be  little  more  than  branches 

57 


58 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


of  a  great  trade  combine — capitalist  or  democratic 
according  to  structure. 

Now  it  must  not  hastily  be  assumed  that  there 
will  not  be  transition  guilds  somewhat  of  this 
kind.  Until  the  majority  of  the  members  of  a 
trade  will  take  the  trouble  to  make  themselves 
fully  expert  in  its  problems,  it  is  quite  clear  that 
the  guilds  cannot  be  self -managing.  A  superior 
and  beneficent  autocrat  might  group  all  the 
people  of  a  nation  into  their  respective  trades 
and  occupation ;  and  endoW  each  group  with  the 
right  to  manage  its  own  affairs.  But  there  are 
very  tight  limits  to  the  power  of  the  autocrat, 
fortunately.  He  can  take  all  his  horses  to  the 
water,  but  he  cannot  make  them  drink— a  truth 
which  has  been  concealed  from  the  babes  and 
sucklings  of  the  governing  class,  though  the 
stable-boys  have  known  it  since  their  first  failure 
at  the  farmyard  pond. 

If  organization  by  function  is  the  first  principle 
and  the  anatomical  structure  of  the  Guild  system, 
the  principle  of  self-management  is  the  idea 
which  makes  the  dry  bones  of  that  structure 
move  with  life.  So  long-  jas  the  guild  is  controlled 
by  any  outside  influence,  so  long  it  is  merely 
a  babe  unable  to  walk.  As  was  said  above,  it 
may  be  as  necessary  a  stage  in  its  career  as 
in  the  life  of  the  child.  But  we  are  now  con- 
sidering this  second  principle  in  its  complete 
form.  The  essence  of  it  is  that,  in  the  main,  the 
guildsmen  are  their  own  masters ;  not  necessarily 
in  any  spirit  of  self-assertion,  but  just  because 


THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE 


59 


the  idea  of  the  guild  is  that  work  shall  be  done 
by  craftsmen  and  professionals,  and  not  by  out- 
siders and  amateurs. 

Now,  of  course,  it  is  possible  in  theory  that  a 
central  government  department  might  engage,  let 
us  say,  an  experienced  coal-miner  to  advise  the 
department  on  the  control  of  the  mines;,  to  dratt 
their  regulations,  to  superintend  their  mspectors, 
and  generally   represent  the   State  m   so   far  as 
it  interferes  in  the   coal-mining  industry.      One 
might  even  go  further,  and  suppose  that  the  whole 
central  department  is  staffed  with  experienced  men 
drawn  straight  from  the  mines  or  the  pit  heads^ 
It  ^11  be  said  that  here  surely  is  a  scheme  which 
will  provide   the  purest  of  expert   advice.      But 
such  a  system  must  be  classed  as  Bureaucracy ; 
it   is   entirely   opposed   to    the   whole   essence   of 
the  Guild  system— which  insists  on  self -manage- 
ment,    as     against     outside     control,     however 
expert.     There  are  several  good  reasons  for  this 

insistence.  ,  ^.u  4. 

First,    there    is    the    very    good    reason    that 

Bureaucracy,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  does  not  choose 

expert  workers ;   it  chooses  first-class  bureaucrats. 

It  would   be  inhuman   if  it   did   not  look  upon 

the    world    with   the    rather    timid    eyes    of   the 

sedentary    clerk.      It   probably    thinks    that    the 

world    can    be    saved    if    a    sufficient    number 

of    letters    and    reports    are    written    about    it. 

There    are    hundreds    and    thousands    of    clever, 

self-sacrificing  officials  in  Government  offices,  who 

pass  their  lives  in  helpful  work.     But  the  most 


60 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


helpful  work  they  can  do  is  to  stand  on  one 
side,  and  not  act  as  a  buffer  between  the  men 
who  are  themselves  producing  and  the  community 
which  is  receiving.  It  is  not  that  all  Govern- 
ment officials  are  dishonest  or  foolish;  most 
of  them  are  the  reverse.  The  bad  thing  about 
them  all  is  that  they  are  clerks,  and  wealth  is 
not  made  by  clerks.  It  is  standing  the  pyramid 
of  production  on  an  uneasy  apex,  when  we 
attempt  to  balance  it  on  bureaucracy.  A  pyramid, 
if  one  wishes  it  restful  and  contented,  must  be 
on  its  base;  and  the  base  of  production  is 
Labour.  There  may  be  need  for  many  clerks 
before  the  products  reach  the  public;  the  clerk 
may  be  most  necessary  for  many  quite  legitimate 
purposes.      But   he  is  not  a  base. 

Bureaucracy  may  be  willing  to  consult  expert 
workers  at  times,  but  it  is  the  exception,  not 
the  rule.  Besides,  why  consult  the  producers 
when  these  latter  should  already  have  been 
in  a  position  to  do  what  is  necessary  without 
having  to  proceed  through  the  tedious  process 
of  consulting  anybody?  Bureaucracy,  at  the 
best,  must  be  a  buffer  State  :  and  anything  it 
does  must  be  second-hand  work.  There  may  be 
a  legitimate  place  for  it  :  as  we  shall  see  later, 
there  must  be  some  kind  of  social  organ  repre- 
senting the  community,  something  we  call  the 
**  State  ";  and  there  it  will  be  difficult  to  dodge 
the  sedentary  clerk  and  his  assistant  office-boy 
altogether.  But  wherever  we  eventually  place 
him,  it  will  not  be  as  a  base.     As  one  has  already 


J 


THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE 


61 


insisted  in  another  connection,  the  Guild  systeip 
is  not  dogmatic ;  it  is  largely  a  question  of  arrang- 
ing our  social  affairs  with  the  right  emphasis,  of 
getting  that  nice  balance  which  is  so  often  the 
real  answer  to  the  wordy  squabbles  of  this  world. 
So  often  we  are  all  nearly  right,  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  saying  what  we  mean  in  the  correct 

tone.  .  ' 

Perhaps  the  most  urgent  practical  reason  for 
self-management  by  the  guild  members  is  that 
it  is  becoming  clearer  than  clarity  that,  for 
good  or  evil.  Democracy  has  arrived.  The 
current  phrase  is  that  it  is  knocking  at  the 
door  ;  it  almost  looks  as  though  it  has  knocked  the 
door  down.  There  is  a  healthy  reaction  against 
doing  what  we  are  told.  In  many  cases  it  may 
be  admitted  that  what  we  are  told  is  wiser  than 
what  we  do  ourselves.  But  doing'  the  wrong 
thing  ourselves  is  often  more  stimulating  than 
doing  the  right  thing  because  somebody  else 
orders  it.  The  boys  who  are  tied  to  their 
mother's  apron  strings  are  provei"bially  a  poor 
lot.  And  whether  the  apron  belongs  to  a  bishop, 
a  State  official,  or  a  private  master,  a  long  course 
of  leading  tends  to  intellectual  flabbiness.  When 
Democracy  insists  that  it  should  do  its  own  work 
and  revolts  against  its  masters,  it  is  a  pirinciple 
that  can  be  defended  by  the  rules  of  the  science 
books.  And,  right  or  Wrong,  Democracy  is 
wilful  and  clearly  intends  to  try. 

But  the  soundest  reason  for  self-management 
in  a  guild  is  that  it  is  clearly  impossible  to  find 


62 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


a  better  way  of  doing  the  work.  Who  knows 
more  about  the  digging  of  coal  than  the  coal- 
miners  and  their  foremen  and  managers?  Can 
the  wisest  men  at  the  Board  of  Trade  know 
anything  that  the  miners  do  not  know  first?  Who 
knows  more  about  the  spinning  of  cotton  than 
the  cotton -spinners?  It  is  inconceivable  that  any 
State  department  sitting  at  Whitehall  should  know 
as  much  about  an  industry  as  they  know*  in  the 
workshops  or  mines.  Who  knows  as  much 
about  medicine  as  the  doctors?  Or  of  painting 
as  the  painters?  Self -management  by  the  trade 
seems  almost  to  rank  with  the  axiom  of  Euclid 
on  self-evident  propositions.  To  deny  them 
is  not  so  much  argument  as  dull  stupidity.  The 
capitalists  may  have  a  case  against  Guild 
management;  but  the  State  certainly  has  none 
Whatever — at  the  least,  it  has  scarcely  a  sporting 
chance. 

If  the  master  has  a  plausible  case  for 
managing  his  factory  without  interference  by 
the  workers,  it  is  overridden  by  the  fact  that  the 
workers  have  made  up  their  minds  differently. 
That  is  a  fact  which  has  to  be  recognized  by 
wise  people.  If  a  man  had  two  more  feet  where 
his  arms  are,  it  would  be  wise  and  scientific  to 
tell  him  to  walk  after  the  manner  of  the  other 
four-footed  creatures.  When  he  has  evolved  a 
pair  of  hands  instead  of  two  more  feet,  then  the 
phenomenon  must  be  accepted  as  a  factor  in 
his  problem.  Intellectually  or  morally,  he  insists 
on    standing    on   his    hind   feet    and    nature   has 


THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE 


63 


accepted  the  position,  and  sealed  the  bargain 
by  turning  the  top  pair  into  hands.  And  that 
is  exactly  the  position  of  the  labouring  classes 
to-day.  The  man  who  tries  to  oppose  this 
demand  is  not  a  brave  statesman;  he  is  a  blind 
fool.  He  is  trying  to  solve  his  problems  by 
leaving  out  half  the  factors.  One  would  not 
start  planning  a  journey  to  America  by  assuming 
that  the  ocean  was  dry,  and  that  the  journey 
could  be   done  in   a  car. 

Consider  in  a  little  detail  how  the  self -manage- 
ment theory  would  work  out  in  practice,  and 
leave  the  fine  elaboration  of  theory  to  those 
very  numerous  persons  of  bureaucratic  minds  who 
love  much  theorizing.  The  general  comment  may 
be  made  in  this  place  that  the  very  essence  of 
the  Guild  theory  is  that  the  arrangements  of 
management  shall  be  made  by  each  guild  for 
itself.  It  is  therefore  absurd  and  paradoxical 
to  draw  up  elaborate  rules  and  constitutions  for 
the  various  trades.  That  could  only  be  done  by 
some  one  who  is  a  real  bureaucrat  at  heart,  and 
not  a  believer  in  the  guilds  at  all.  One  can  go 
no  further  than  guesses  at  the  rules,  the  members 
will  probably  lay  down  to  meet  the  special  facts 
of  the  special  crafts.  Wise  men  will  hope,  above 
all  else,  that  there  will  be  no  uniformity  in  the 
details;  for  that  will  probably  mean  that  the 
problems  have  been  solved  in  the  crudely 
generaUzed  manner  which  is  more  usually  the 
result  of  the  present  clumsy  system  of  central 
control,  whether  by  Whitehall  or  by  trusts.     The 


64 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


guilds  are  advocated  in  the  hope  that  they  will 
be  delicate  and  not  clumsy,  in  their  handling  of 
the  problem  of  industry — and  delicacy  will 
demand  special  rules  to  meet  special  cases.  It 
will  be  analogous  to  the  difference  between 
producing  by  hand  and  manufacturing  by 
standardized  machines.  The  Guild  system  is 
government  by  craftsmen;  the  centralized 
monarchy  or  plutocracy  is  government  by 
machine. 

The  two  faces  to  the  problem  are  :  on  one 
side  the  guild  producing  the  goods  ;  on  the  other, 
the  general  public  demanding  and  consuming 
those  goods.  In  essence  there  is  just  the  same 
problem  to-day ;  the  manufacturer  producing  and 
the  pubhc  buying.  The  problem  is  to  what 
extent,  if  any,  should  the  public  interfere  with 
the  management  of  the  production.  When  the 
shopper  goes  to  the  bootmaker  he  does  not  first 
inquire  into  the  management  of  the  boot  factory  : 
if  the  goods  required  are  in  the  shop,  they  are 
bought;  if  not,  another  shop  is  visited.  SucW 
is  the  present  method.  It  must  not  be  too 
hastily  assumed  that  the  consumers  will  any 
more  interfere  with  the  producers  under  a 
reformed   system. 

It  will  here  be  objected  that  under  the  present 
system  there  is  already  an  elaborate  control  of 
the  factory  by  legislation  of  an  embracing  kind; 
regulating  the  hours,  the  wages,  the  health  of 
the  workers,  and  so  on.  To  that  extent  it  is 
true    to    say    that    the    purchaser    has    already 


THE   SECOND   PRINCIPLE 


65 


interfered  with  the  producer  through  his  repre- 
sentatives at  Westminster  and  Whitehall;  and 
under  the  Guild  system  an  analogous  control 
will  be  exercised.  However  free  a  hand  the 
community  as  a  whole  will  give  to  the  guilds  in 
self-management,  there  will  be  a  standard  of 
Hfe  on  which  the  State  will  insist  as  a  minimum. 
It  will  be  rather  as  if  the  Creator  gave  the 
scientists  a  free  hand  with  their  own  special 
departments,  so  long  as  they  kept  regard  to 
the  great  universal  principles  of  gravitation  and 
the  dispersal  of  energy.  The  geologist  could 
sort  out  his  epochs  and  strata  to  his  fancy;  the 
biologist  arrange  and  rearrange  his  species;  the 
sociologist  lay  down  his  laws  for  human  civil- 
ization. They  would  each  have  self-management 
up    to    a    point. 

In  a  similar  way  the  State  will  lay  down 
general  principles  which  evea  self-managing 
guilds  must  respect.  There  will  be  probably 
a  minimum  wage  based  on  a  theory  that  below 
it  no  citizen  could  keep  himself  in  the  condition 
which  the  public  honour  and  welfare  demand. 
Beyond  that  minimum  one  imagines  that  each 
guild  will  be  allowed  to  distribute  its  surplus  as 
the  members  decide  by  a  vote  of  the  majority. 
It  is  very  improbable  that  they  will  vote  at  first 
for  equaUty  of  wages.  To  begin  with,  there 
will  be  a  fairly  united  refusal  of  the  full-aged 
and  experienced  members  to  accept  equality  with 
the  young  apprentices.  Even  the  most  rabid 
disciple  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity  will 

5 


66 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


not    necessarily    demand    the    same    wage    for    a 
youth  of  eighteen  learning  his  trade  and  a  full- 
trained  man  of  thirty-five,  and  once  the  principle 
was    broken,    Equality    would    become    a    mere 
rough-and-ready     standard     against     which     to 
measure  each  case  as  it  arose,  in  order  to  strike 
a  balance  within  reasonable  limits.     This  guild, 
for  its  only  welfare,  would  almost  certainly  offer 
higher  wages  to  any  one  whose  special  encourage- 
ment  to    work   would    be   for    the    advantage   of 
the   whole.      For  example,   if  one   member  had 
given  proof  of  high  organizing  powers,  it  would 
obviously  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  members  to 
incite   him   to  apply   that   power   to   the   highest 
possible   degree.      It  would  save  them  time   and 
money,  and  therefore  increase  their  profits.     For, 
as  will  be  discussed  later,  there  is  no  reason  to 
think   that   the   guilds   will   immediately   abolish 
competition.      It  will  be  made  a  sane  competi- 
tion for  the  benefit  of  the  community,  instead  of 
a  very  insane  one,  for  the  benefit  of  the  profiteer. 
But   it   would  be   just   as   hasty   to  assume   that 
all  competition  is  a  public  evil   as   it  would  be 
for  a  man  with  sunstroke  to  dismiss  the  sun  as 
a    public     nuisance.       Anyhow,     if    competition 
between  guilds  remains,  it  will  be  to  the  advan- 
tage  of   the  members    to   pay    enticing   rewards 
for  the  most  experienced  managers  and  officials. 
All  of  which  distinctions   of   reward   will   be  for 
the  members  to  decide  within  the  standard  laid 
down   by    the   State   in   its    first    principles. 
Then  there  may  well  be  a  State  standard  of 


THE  SECOND   PRINCIPLE 


67 


hours  of  work.  Here  again  it  can  be  nothing 
beyond  a  maximum  which  must  not  be  passed; 
on  the  general  grounds  that  the  health  and 
happiness  of  the  citizen  may  be  injured  to  the 
detriment  of  the  honour  and  welfare  of  the  com- 
munity. And  likewise  there  may  be  standard- 
ized laws  of  health  and  general  safety.  But 
with  democratic  guild  control  the  urgent  necessity 
for  this  national-minimum  legislation  will  some- 
what disappear.  It  is  necessary  under  a  control 
by  profiteers  and  company  promoters — but  quite 
another  thing  when  the  workers  make  their  own 
regulations  for  their  own  welfare. 

At  what  point  State  general  principles  will 
cease,  and  the  equally  great  State  principle  of 
self -management  begin,  cannot  be  decided  by 
any  hard-and-fast  boundary  lines.  It  will  not 
be  a  straight  line,  like  the  artificial  lines  of 
many  modern  American  States.  It  will  turn 
back  and  forward  to  suit  the  convenience  of 
these  innumerable  bends  and  fancies  of  the  human 
mind.  Only  dull-witted  persons  demand  inelastic 
rules;  wise  people  will  be  content  with  a  mere 
outline  which  can  be  modified  as  circumstances 
arise . 

Of  course  the  general  rule  will  be  that  all 
technical  points  concerning  the  processes  of 
production  will  be  entirely  under  the  control  of 
the  guild.  Put  in  another  way,  it  will  be  for 
the  State  to  express  \^hat  it  wants;  it  will  be 
for  the  guild  to  say  how  it  shall  be  done.  Within 
the    general  ^standard    of    public    morality    and 


68 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


culture,  as  laid  down  by  the  collective  desire 
of  the  community  and  expressed  by  its  organ 
the  State,  the  guild  will  be  given  a  free  hand. 
As  already  hinted,  this  freedom  will  not  neces- 
sarily be  given  because  one  governing  class 
suddenly  becomes  generous  and  unselfish;  but 
mainly  because  it  is  becoming  every  day  more 
impossible  for  reasonable  men  to  deny  the  sound- 
ness of  the  argument  that  the  only  people  who 
can  properly  control  production  are  the  people 
who  produce.  That  is  the  chief  strength  of 
the  Guild  idea— it  is  based  on  quite  ordinary 
common  sense,  divorced  from  that  sentimentality 
which  is  the  real  basis  of  most  plutocratic  and 
bureaucratic  government.  The  State  will  not 
interfere  with  the  guilds  more  than  it  can  help; 
for  exactly  the  same  reason  that  a  mother  does 
not  interfere  with  the  surgeon  whom  she  has 
called  to  operate  on  her  child.  One  leaves  a 
job   to    the   man    who   can    do   it   best. 

There  will  naturally  be  great  variety  in  the 
form  of  the  guilds;  and,  consequently,  a  great 
variety  in  the  methods  of  management.  If  the 
Guild  system  is  to  cover  everything  from  dairy 
farming  to  university  education,  and  all  work 
from  the  production  of  plates  to  the  playing  of 
musical  symphonies,  then  it  is  fairly  clear  that 
there  may  be  more  differences  than  similarities 
in  their  internal  rules.  The  breaking  up  of  a 
trade  into  smaller  local  units,  instead  of  having 
one  vast  guild  covering  the  whole  industry,  is 
so  important   an  internal  need   that   it   will  be 


THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE 


69 


discussed  by  itself  as  an  independent  first 
principle  in  the  next  chapter.  But  the  present 
is  the  most  convenient  place  to  consider  other 
internal  problems  of  management  which  may 
affect   the   guild. 

Having  received  a  charter  from  the  State 
(which  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter),  it  will 
be  the  legitimate  right  of  the  guild  to  take  as 
much  advantage  and  profit  from  that  charter  as 
an  honest  private  trader  takes  from  a  contract 
with  a  customer.  The  guilds  will  take  the  place 
of  the  private  master  or  public  company,  and  the 
problems  of  management  which  they  will  inherit 
from  their  predecessors  will  often  equally  apply 
to  their  own  case.  As  already  suggested,  the 
members  will  have  selfish  reasons,  if  nothing 
better,  for  selecting  the  most  efficient  staff  of 
officials  and  managers.  The  capable  manager, 
who  is  now  probably  afraid  that  a  revolution  in 
the  industrial  system  may  dislodge  him  from  his 
place,  might  realize  that  the  most  revolutionary 
of  guilds  would  think  twice  before  they  lost  the 
services  of  an  efficient  official.  They  will  then 
be  as  anxious  to  secure  efficient  managers  as 
the  capitalists  are  anxious  to  find  and  keep  them 
to-day  ;  and  this  for  the  same  reason— the 
increased  prosperity  of  the  business.  In  some 
cases,  the  guilds  may  decide  to  make  all  appoint- 
ments of  officers  in  a  full  meeting,  by  popular 
vote.  But  others  may  be  quite  willing  to  leave 
selections  and  promotion  to  the  managerial  staff ; 
leaving   criticism   for  the   annual  meetings,   and 


II 


t 


70 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


opportunities  when  a  contract  with  an  offending 
manager  might  be  closed.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  for  the  sake  of  good  managers  a  guild  may 
give  lengthy  contracts  to  its  officials;  but  it 
will  probably  not  bind  itself  over  too  many 
meetings  without  a  very  excellent  reason.  But 
here,  as  elsewhere,  there  will  be  infinite  variety 
in   the    rules. 

Another  way  of  considering  the  position  of 
officers  is  to  realize  their  changed  status  in 
a  guild  where  they  will  be  much  more  clearly 
overseers  of  work  than  of  workmen.  In  other 
words,  the  foremen  and  managers  of  to-day  are 
so  largely  needed  to  keep  the  workers  at  full 
pressure;  and  only  in  part  are  they  necessary 
for  superintending  the  work  as  a  process.  But 
when  a  worker  is  just  as  much  interested  in  his 
business  as  the  capitalist  is  now,  every  man  will 
be  a  jog  on  the  fellow  who  is  inclined  to  laze  : 
while  on  the  other  side  there  will  be  fewer 
inclined  to  be  slack  than  there  are  to-day,  when 
the  main  result  of  hard  work  is  to  make  some- 
body else  richer  than  he  has  the  right  to  be. 
So  the  main  gist  of  the  foreman  and  overseer 
under  the  guilds  will  be  to  assist  in  increasing 
the  efficiency  of  the  process.  The  workers,  so 
far  as  they  keep  the  election  of  officials  in  their 
own  hands,  will  be  mainly  guided  in  their  choice 
by  their  knowledge  of  a  candidate's  technical 
skill. 

It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  technical  advan- 
tages of  giving  every  worker,  humanly  and  legi- 


THE  SECOND  PRINCIPLE 


71 


timately,  a  selfish  interest  in  the  welfare  of  his 
guild.  It  should  easily  reduce  the  managing 
staff  by  a  large  fraction;  for  there  will  be  less 
slacking  and  everybody  will  be  interested  in  doing 
his  best.  To  substitute  the  element  of  collective 
welfare  for  the  private  capitalist's  welfare  will 
cause  most  radical  changes  in  industry;  it  is, 
indeed,  almost  impossible  to  measure  them;  or 
even  to  know  of  what  precise  nature  they  will 
be.  Until  they  are  known  and  measured  more 
exactly,  it  is  perhaps  a  waste  of  time  discussing 
in  too  great  detail  the  structure  of  the  guilds  of 
the  future.  It  is  the  main  idea  of  the  present 
essay  to  define  clearly  the  general  principles 
of  the  guilds — one  of  which  is  that  the  details 
must  be  left  to  the  more  or  less  individual  taste 
and  judgment  of  the   guildsmen. 

It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  it  will  be  far 
more  in  general  principles  than  in  details  that  an 
agricultural  guild  will  resemble  an  house-building 
guild.  The  geographical  area  will  be  quite 
different;  the  number  of  the  members;  the 
needs  of  management.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  main  principles  will  be  bound  to 
need  different  methods;  otherwise  the  principles 
themselves  might  disappear.  A  rule  that  saved 
the  principle  in  one  case  might  ruin  it  in  another. 
When  the  idea  of  the  guilds  as  a  whole  is 
grasped,  the  details  will  follow  as  the  members — 
and  perhaps  the  less  reasonable  fates  ! — will  care 
to  make  them.  It  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
deep   down  in  the   Guild  idea   is   the  conviction 


72 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


that  there  is  something  inherently  vicious  in  all 
compulsory  government,  and  that  self-control  is 
the  key  to  many  of  the  problems  of  human 
society.  It  may  ultimately  come  to  pass  that 
the  governors  and  wise  men  of  a  State  will  not 
rule  the  people — as  policemen  and  generals 
understand  that  subtle  term  '*  rule  " — but  will, 
rather,  suggest  to  them  what  they  ought  to  do. 
Of  course  the  people  may  not  always  be  wise 
enough  to  take  the  advice,  and  may  suffer 
accordingly.  But  at  least  they  will  not  suffer 
so  much  as  they  have  continually  done  by  obeying 
the  commands  of  the  third-rate  intellects — and 
first-class  adventurers — who  often  rule  them 
to-day. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   THIRD    PRINCIPLE  :     DECENTRAL- 
IZATION    AND     SMALL     UNITS 


HAVING  seen  that  the  main  principle  of  the 
Guild  system  is  the  organization  of  the 
nation  in  terms  of  industrial  function;  and  that 
it  naturally  follows  that  the  units  so  formed 
should  have  the  power  of  self-management,  if 
we  are  not  going  to  rob  the  scheme  of  one  of 
its  greatest  advantages  :  we  now  have  to  consider 
the  other  main  and  third  principle  which  will 
develop  the  Guild  system  as  far  as  main  prin- 
ciples can  carry  it.  The  rest  will  be  practical 
details.  The  third  main  principle  may  be 
defined  thus  :  No  guild  should  be  larger  than 
the  smallest  possible  unit  that  the  efficiency  of 
the  trade  or  occupation  demands.  Here  is  a 
principle  which  is  the  exact  contrary  of  almost 
every  "  orthodox  "  theory  in  history  or  econo- 
mics for  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years.  The 
books  written  by  the  *'  donish "  mind  of  the 
university  schools,  almost  always  start  with  the 
assumption  that  civilization,  as  expressed  both  in 
political  constitutions  and  commercial  and  indus- 
trial affairs,  has  been  a  continually  advantageous 
increase  in  the  centralization  of  the  governing 
factor.  For  example,  the  average  historian 
assumes  that  France  became  a  happier  and  a 
better  governed  land  in  proportion  as  the  central 
power  in  Paris  crushed  out  of  existence  the  more 


73 


74 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


'f 


local  authorities  of  the  provincial  barons  and 
communes.  Again,  on  the  economic  side,  it  is 
assumed  by  the  learned  professors  who  have 
such  an  enthusiastic  admiration  for  the  industrial 
revolution  (which  turned  so  much  of  England 
into  a  pigsty  and  a  coalhole)  that  trade  got 
more  healthy  and  efficient  in  proportion  as  it 
crushed  out  the  small  producer,  and  collected 
what  was  left  of  him  into  centralized  factories  ; 
which,  in  continuation  of  the  same  beneficent 
process,  then  became  pawns  under  the  control 
of    still    more    gigantic    trusts. 

In  discussing  this  subject  of  the  supposed 
advantages  of  centralization  we  are  approaching 
one  of  the  great  delusions  of  the  human  race; 
or  rather  of  that,  fortunately  small,  section  of 
it  which  has  smothered  its  experience  of  real 
Ufe  in  a  maze  of  fancies.  The  learned  have 
taught  that  centraUzation  has  been  a  great 
fact  of  history;  and  in  so  doing  they  are  very 
obviously  right  :  it  is  a  fact.  But  to  call  it 
an  event  which  has  been  beneficial  to  humanity, 
is  not  a  fact — ^but  merely  a  wild  guess  which 
is  disproved  by  the  evidence.  Ever  since  the 
Middle  Ages,  there  has  been  a  tendency  for  all 
political  and  economic  organization  to  grow  more 
and  more  centraUzed.  The  Middle  Ages  them- 
selves were  a  reaction  against  the  colossal 
centralization  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But,  of 
course,  there  will  be  no  attempt  here  to  treat 
of  the  subject  in  the  way  of  history.  For  the 
proof  of  the  above  statement  would  be  the  history 


THE  TmUD  PRINCIPLE 


76 


of  the  human  race,  at  least  in  Western  Europe. 
On  one  side  it  would  be  the  story  of  this  gradual 
tendency  to  centraUzation,  both  of  the  political 
organism  and  of  the  economic  organs.  On  the 
other  side,  looking  at  it  from  the  point  of 
impartial  criticism,  the  philosophical  historian 
would  be  compelled  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
centralization  of  government  has  been  nothing 
short  of  a  calamity  to  mankind. 

CentraUzation  has  meant,  in  practice,  the 
triumph  of  the  governor  over  the  governed.  The 
process  has  been  artfully,  sometimes,  indeed, 
artlessly  and  innocently,  concealed  under  a  maze 
of  words  which  suggest  that  it  has  meant  the 
triumph  of  the  people  as  a  nation  or  as  a  race. 
It  has  often,  indeed  generally,  gone  side  by 
side  with  that  superficial  and  very  illusory  display 
of  "  democracy  *'  called  the  extension  of  the 
franchise.  Because  all  France  (more  or  less, 
and  without  the  women)  can  now  put  in  the 
ballot-boxes  its  views  on  the  Government  that  it 
desires,  there  is  an  hysterical  idea  that  Frenchmen 
have  now  more  control  over  their  affairs  than 
they  had  in  the  days  of  Hugh  Capet.  If  all 
government  is  gathered  together  in  the  hands 
of  a  Uttle  group  of  Ministers,  the  people  nurse 
the  delusion  that  it  is  themselves  who  have 
elected  that  group.  Perhaps  it  would  be  fairer 
to  say  that  the  people  as  a  whole  are  not  quite 
so  dull  and  short-sighted  :  but  it  is  perfectly 
fair  to  say  that  the  orthodox  philosophers  and 
historians    and    economists,    who    translate    facts 


76 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


into  theories,  have  done  everything  in  their  power 
to  foster  this  gigantic  error  in  the  pubUc  mind. 
Gigantic  error,  it  certainly  is.  It  is  a  loose 
reading  of  the  superficial  facts,  imagining  that 
they  are  the  governing  factors.  Whereas,  they 
are  such  trivial  facts  that  they  would  scarcely 
be  noticed  by  the  judicial  observer. 

The  growth  of  despotism  and  the  decline  of 
democracy  may  be  measured  very  accurately  by 
the  cubic  capacity  of  the  Government  offices. 
This  may  seem  a  paradoxical  statement,  but  it 
is  really  a  clear  truth.  What  is  more,  it 
rests  on  a  very  simple  foundation  Which  requires 
no  vague  philosophical  explanation.  The  key 
can  be  put  very  simply.  It  is  hard  to  control 
an  official  or  a  council  of  men  whom  one  rarely 
or  never  sees  :  it  is  impossible  to  see  through 
brick  walls  and  wooden  doors,  especially  when 
they  are  many  miles  away.  That  may  sound 
a  commonplace  reason  for  the  secret  strength  of 
a  central  government,  and  yet  there  is  really 
no  need  to  search  for  a  more  ponderous  one. 
The  fundamental  reason  for  the  immunity  of 
a  central  government  from  popular  control  is 
mainly  that  it  is  out  of  range  of  the  people's 
guns,  to  put  it  in  a  simple  military  analogy. 

If  the  councillors  of  a  modest  little  country 
town  ventured  to  do  a  quarter  of  the  autocratic 
things  done  by  the  Westminster  politicians,  their 
burgesses  would  simply  call  at  the  various  shops 
or  villas  possessed  by  the  aforesaid  councillors 
and    argue    with    them    over  the    counter — or   if 


THE  THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


77 


necessary  with  bricks  through  the  windows.  A 
healthy  people,  in  full  possession  of  their  tongues 
— not  to  mention  their  arms— would  not  put  up 
with  much  nonsense  from  their  rulers  if  these 
latter  lived  and  officiated  within  a  reasonable 
distance  for  an  evening  or  afternoon  call. 
It  is  distance — and  very  little  else— that  tells  so 
heavily  in  favour  of  the  central  government.  The 
man  who  lives  next  door  could  not  be  a  tyrant 
on  any  dangerous  scale;  for  the  simple  reason 
that  one  could  do  so  many  annoying  things  in 
retaliation.  A  well -instructed*  dog  barking  at 
night  could  drive  the  most  perverse  of  tyrants 
into  capitulation  within  a  week.  No  one  dreads 
the  known  or  is  deceived  by  him— especially 
when  he  lives  next  door. 

But  who  can  reach  Whitehall?  And  when 
one  arrived,  for  whom  would  the  reforming 
democrat  ask?  Centralized  government,  which  . 
has  collected  so  much  of  the  public  work  into 
one  spot,  has  thereby  succeeded  in  concealing 
the  culprit  from  the  victim  of  his  inefficient  rule. 
There  are  tens  of  thousands  of  officials  in  a 
great  government.  Who  is  the  one  responsible? 
Behind  which  of  those  thousands  of  windows 
and  doors  does  he  sit?  Through  how  many  of 
those  corridors  and  rooms  will  a  letter  wander 
if  one  writes  to  tell  him  of  his  sins  :  and  since 
he  is  so  safely  out  of  reach,  will  he^  much  worry 
if  your  letter  does  reach  him? 

Besides,  there  is  another  side  to  the  pernicious 
system    of    centraUzation.      It    is    sp    vast    and 


78 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


complex  that  the  most  honest  of  officials  or 
members  of  Parliament  do  not  know  how  to 
put  right  that  which  is  wrong.  It  resembles  the 
mazes  :  it  is  exceedingly  hard  to  find  the  way. 
•But  this  maze  of  over-centralized  government 
is  so  unutterably  confusing,  even  to  the  fairly 
expert,  that  it  confounds  itself.  It  would  be  a 
failure',  even  if  every  bureaucracy  and  every 
poHtician  were  as  honest  as  the  sunlight.  But 
then,  even  sunUght  dazzles  and  blinds.  The 
system  attempts  too  much.  When  the  Norman 
and  Plantagenet  Icings  first  deliberately  attempted 
centraHzed  government  in  England,  it  is  probable 
that  it  did  simplify  the  problem  of  law  and 
order.  Of  course,  they  were  under  no  illusions 
why  they  wanted  the  new  method  of  the  King's 
Courts  instead  of  the  older  local  controls  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  :  it  was  in  order  to  strengthen 
•  their  own  power.  There  was  no  humbug  about 
the  welfare  of  the  people  in  those  franker  days. 
However,  up  to  a  point,  there  were  good  enough 
reasons  for  their  action.  But  the  hopelessly 
over-centraUzed  government  of  to-day  has  out- 
stripped all  reasons,  and  become  an  ever-in- 
creasing advantage  to  the  corrupt  and  inefficient, 
and  an  ever-decreasing  good  to  the  honest  and 
efficient.  The  proofs  are  to  be  found  in  all 
modern  history. 

But  it  may  be  asked  how  all  this  touches  the 
matter  of  the  guilds.  Very  closely  indeed.  It 
was  probably  as  a  reaction  against  the  evils 
of   over-centraUzation   that   the   more    far-seeing 


THE  THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


79 


began  to  turn  to  the  older  system  which  existed 
before  the  central  theory  was  pushed  to  the  point 
of  stupidity.     If  organization  by  function  is  the 
root  of  the  Guild  system,  the  necessity  to  escape 
the  preposterous  evils  of  centralization  is  certainly 
its  driving  force.      But  there  are  still  too  many 
people,   within   the   fold,   as   it   were,   who   have 
only   half   digested   the    theory   of   guilds;     who 
have   even  now   failed   to   see  that   it   might  be 
possible    to    so    centralize    the    guilds    that    they 
would  be  in  reality  only  the  old  State  Collec- 
tivism with  nothing  new  about  it  except  a  new 
name.     Take  the  case  of  Coal-mining.     It  is  such 
a  vast  industry  that,   even  as   a  guild,  it  would 
be  quite  worthy  of  a   department   in   Whitehall, 
all    to    itself;      with    a    politician    and    Minister 
to  represent  it  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament.     In 
other  words,  all  the  evils  from  which  the  guilds- 
men  are  endeavouring  to  escape,  would  be  estab- 
lished once  more.      The  pits  might  be  managed 
by    miners;      but    their    headquarters    staff    at 
Whitehall,    or   wherever    they   housed    it,    would 
soon  be  drawn  from  the  men  who  lived  by  their 
pens  and  reports,  instead  of  by  their  picks.     Once 
more  the  wire-pullers  and  intriguers  would  find 
that    peculiar   element    of    centralization — ^neither 
land,  air,  nor  water — which  is  so  fertile  for  the 
propagation  of  the  self-seeking.     Soon  the  mines 
would  be  controlled  by  the  bureaucrats  instead 
of   the    miners— for,    under    the   central    system, 
Whitehall  or  its  like  will  always  win. 

Even  if  the  miners  at  the  pits  retained  their 


80 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


right  to  vote  in  the  election  of  all  officials,  one 
could  see  the  day  soon  coming  when  they  would 
be  asked  to  support  a  candidate  whom  they 
had  never  seen.  He  would  be,  perchance,  one 
of  the  pets  of  Whitehall  who  please  those 
mysterious  gentlemen  who  sit  in  the  high  seats 
of  the  ruUng  set.  The  miners  might  have  begun 
to  see  his  name  appearing  more  and  more 
frequently  as  the  signature  after  the  many  bye- 
laws  and  regulations  with  which  a  confident 
bureaucracy  would  soon  flood  the'  mining  world. 
Unless  a  bureaucracy  produces  many  rules,  people 
might  begin  to  think  that  it  was  scarcely  worth 
its  wages  :  so  in  self-defence,  it  naturally  makes 
as  many  regulations  as  it  can  :  for  the  same 
natural  reason  that  the  miners  produce  as  many 
tons  of  coal  as  possible.  One  at  least  will  give 
the  bureaucrat  his  due;  he  likes  to  produce 
as  many  rules  as  he  can  for  his  salary. 

The  root  of  the  evil  is  that  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  make  a  proper  choice  at  an  election 
— whether  it  be  for  Parliament,  a  local  council,  or 
for  guild  officials — ^unless  the  electors  have  a 
really  intimate  knowledge  of  the  candidate.  For 
this  reason,  it  is  necessary  to  select  a  unit  of 
election  which  will  make  it  reasonably  possible  to 
be  offered  a  known  candidate,  instead  of  the 
professional  carpet-bagger,  who  desires  to  know 
his  constituency  during  an  election,  and  to  see 
as  httle  of  it  as  possible  before  or  afterwards. 
The  large,  non-functional  basis  of  the  present 
parUamentary   constituencies  gives   ^very   facility 


THE   THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


81 


for  the  unknown  carpet -bagman.  Men  in  the 
mass  are  both  honest  and  reasonable.  But  the 
centraHzed  system  of  government  gives  the  dis- 
honest and  stupid  their  chance.  And  few  will 
deny  that  they  have  seized  it. 

No  sane  electorate  would  choose  an  intriguer 
and  self-seeker  if  he  were  recognized  to  be  such  ; 
but  he  can  hide  himself  behind  the  complicated 
niaze  of  the  governing  system;  which  hides  his 
vices— while  it  equally  conceals,  the  virtues  of 
the  efficient  and  honest. 

Take  in  some  detail   the   position  of  a  guild 
electing  its  governing  body ;    comparing  a  highly 
centrahzed  guild  with  a  smaller  local  one.     There 
will  be,  or  should  be,  two  main  factors  influencing 
the   elections   in    both    cases.      The   members   of 
the  guild  should  have  two  points  clearly  in  their 
mind  :   first  to  pick  a  man  skilled  in  the  technical 
processes  of  the  craft,  that  is,  an  efficient  work- 
man    or    manager;       secondly     to     choose     the 
candidate  who  combines  this  industrial  skill  with" 
the   moral  honesty   which   will   lead  him   to,  use 
it   for   the    collective   good   of   the    whole  guild. 
In  other  words,   the  two  primary  characteristics 
of  a  candidate  for  office  must  be  knowledge  and 
honesty.     He  is  an  optimist  indeed  who  imagines 
that  such  are  the  qualities  that  emerge  out  of  the 
turmoil  of  a  parliamentary  general  election  to-day. 
A  guild  member  will  have  an  infinitely  better 
chance  of  first-hand  knowledge  of  a  candidate's 
skill  than  can  happen  in  the  present  parliamentary 
case.     To  begin  with,  the  chief  question  at  issue 

6 


82 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


will  be  the  technical  problems  of  his  own  trade ; 
not  those  vague  generalities  which  politicians 
prefer  to  discuss  at  election  time.  Generalities 
are  the  refuge  of  the  ignorant.  When  the 
guild  candidate  asks  for  votes,  he  will  have  to 
make  out  his  case  before  a  constituency  which 
really  knows  what  he  is  talking  about.  It  will 
not  be  possible  to  ride  off  on  the  wings  of 
eloquence,  with  the  liberty  of  the  negroes  of 
Central  Africa, -or  the  glories  of  the  British 
Empire,  as  one's  inspiring  theme.  The  question 
at  issue  will  be  :  How  do  you  intend  to  manage 
this  factory,  or  this  mine,  or  that  farm?  Then 
eloquence  will  have  to  stand  on  one  side  for 
some  more  practical  details,  which  may  be  very 
hampering  to  the  eloquent.  The  electors  will 
probably  ask  for  those  disagreeable  things  called 

'•facts." 

Besides,  there  is  another  factor  in  a  guild 
election.  In  the  natural  course,  a  candidate  will 
be  a  member  of  the  guild— though  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  he  might  be  enticed  out  of  another 
guild  by  the  offer  of  a  better  position— which 
would  be  a  perfectly  healthy  competition,  surely. 
But  in  the  majority  of  cases,  the  candidate  would 
be  known  not  merely  by  his  election  address 
(which  is  often  his  first  appearance  before  the 
electors  to-day)  but  still  more  profoundly  by 
his  daily  work  in  their  own  factory  or  building- 
yard.  Try  to  reaUze  the  position  of  a  candidate 
when  his  daily  record  was  in  the  minds  of  his 
constituents.     It  would  not  be  much  good  giving 


THE  THIRD  PRINCIPLE 


83 


a  glowing  account  of  one's  marvellous  capacity, 
if  every  man  in  the  room  had  tested  that  capacity 
for  himself  a  dozen  times  a  week  for  months  or 
years.  It  would  be  unnecessary  to  explain  one's 
whole-hearted  unselfishness  in  the  service  of  the 
guild,  when  the  audience  would  have  far  better 
grounds  for  passing  judgment  than  most  juries 
who  have  to  decide  between  guilt  and  innocence. 
Election  in  a  guild  would  turn  on  matters  of 
fact,  and  very  little  on  matters  of  theory.  It 
would  depend  far  more  on  performances  of  the 
past  and  very  much  less  on  promises  for  the 
future. 

But  the  possibility  of  dealing  with  facts  rather 
than  generalities,  and  the  consequent  chance  of 
selecting  competent  and  honest  candidates  instead 
of  incompetent  adventurers;     all  this  will  vanish 
to  a  large  degree  if  the  guilds  become  so  large 
that  the  intimate  knowledge  between  electors  and 
elected  cannot  exist.     Suppose  there  is  only  one 
Coal-mining   Guild,   including   all   the    coalfields 
of  the  country  in  one  body.     Of  course,  it  would 
be    possible    for    each    district,    or    each    pit,    to 
elect  its  local  and  minor  official.     But,  sooner  or 
later,   if  the   controlling   council   is   to   represent 
the   whole  of   the    British   pits,    a   guildsman   in 
the    Scottish    districts    may    have    to    decide    on 
the  merits  of  a  proposed  managing-staff  man  who 
comes  from  South   Wales,   whom  he   has   never 
seen  in  his  life.      This  candidate  will  be  to  all 
intents   nothing    but   the   old    carpet-bagman    all 
over  again. 


'  1 


84 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


Besides,  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  easy  way 
of  working  between  local  senior  officials  appointed 
by  the  National  Guild  and  the  minor  local  officials 
chosen  by  the  pit.  There  is  here  an  almost 
inevitable  source  of  friction.  That  is  no  com- 
plete answer  to  the  national  system,  one  willingly 
admits  :  for  there  is  inevitable  friction  inherent 
in  all  social  organizations;  and  it  would  be 
childish  to  expect  to  find  any  system  which  would 
be  free  from  it  :  it  would  be  expecting  the  im- 
possible. All  one  can  reasonably  ask  is  that  a 
system  with  less  possibility  of  friction  should 
always  be  chosen,  other  things  being  equal, 
than  one  causing   more.      It   is   all   a  matter  of 

degree. 

This  question  between  national  and  local  guilds 
seems  to  go  to  the  very  root  of  the  matter,  and 
is  no  tnere  detail.  Self -management  under  the 
national  system  would  be  little  more  than  a 
name;  it  would  be  scarcely  more  control  by  the 
members  of  the  guild  than  if  they  were  all  units 
of  a  State  department  under  bureaucrats  in 
Whitehall ;  which  is  what  in  essence  they  would 
be.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  theory,  but  of  hard 
fact.  The  question  is  :  Could  the  members  have 
any  real  hand  in  their  oWn  management  if  the 
candidates  were  the  choice  of  all  Britain?  In 
theory,  one  knows  perfectly  well  that  we  are 
all  supposed  to  have  a  controlling  hand  in  the 
British  Empire  under  the  parliamentary  system. 
In  practice,  no  one  is  so  stupid  as  to  imagine 
any  such  nonsense.      Our  poUtical  life   is  made 


THE   THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


85 


up  of  these  delusions;  and  if  we  are  going  to 
transfer  them  to  a  new  Guild  system,  then  we 
might  spare  ourselves  the  pangs  of  the  new 
creation.  The  people  who  talk  in  terms  of  great 
National  Guilds  have  usually  missed  the  whole 
essence  of  the  creed. 

There  is  a  rough-and-ready  test  of  the  electoral 
system  :  Can  the  elector  have  any  really  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  capacity  and  character  of  the 
candidate  he  is  selecting?  If  he  cannot  have 
this  knowledge,  then  there  is  little  good  in 
worrying  about  the  exact  method  of  election; 
the  issue  could  quite  as  well  be  decided  by  the 
returning  officers  tossing  a  penny  until  the 
election  was  decided  on  the  heads  and  tails 
system.  There  must  be  either  real  knowledge, 
or  the  whole  matter  is  a  sheer  farce.  If  any 
one  can  discover  a  way  of  combining  this  intimate 
knowledge  with  a  large  area  of  election,  then 
it  would  appear  that  squaring  the  circle,  the 
alchemist's  stone,  the  elixir  of  life,  and  other 
engrossing  pursuits  of  the  absolute,  are  all  out- 
done. If  we  once  decide  that  democracy  is  the 
necessary  keynote  of  modern  civilization,  then  the 
small  electoral  and  functional  area  seems  indis- 
pensable. Without  it  we  can  have  benevolent 
despotism,  partially  efficient  bureaucracy,  blatant 
plutocracy,  or  well-meaning  aristocracy.  But 
Democracy  will  remain  nothing  more  living  than 
a  dream,  pleasant  or  unpleasant  as  our  taste 
may  deem  it.  We  may  decide  that  we  do  not 
find  democracy  an  inevitable  necessity ;    but  once 


,l{i 


?  :il 


h| 


86 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


choosing  it,  we  must  find  the  small  area  or 
utterly  fail. 

As  suggested  above,  one  practical  difficulty 
would  be  in  controlling  locally  elected  minor 
officials  by  centrally  elected  seniors.  Of  course, 
it  exists  to-day  in  various  forms.  The  officials 
of  a  local  education  board  are  in  fact  controlled 
by  the  inspectors  of  the  Board  of  Education. 
But  the  theory  in  that  case  is  that  the  local 
authority  is  independent;  but  if  it  obeys  the 
instructions  of  the  central  Board,  it  receives  an 
annual  grant,  and  loses  it  if  the  instructions  are 
disobeyed.  So  that  in  such  a  case  the  acceptance 
of  the  central  control  is  an  act  of  voluntary 
submission.  It  is  perhaps  here  that  the  solution 
of  the  difficulty  will  be  discovered. 

There  may  conceivably  be  a  system  of 
independent  local  guilds;  each  entirely  respon- 
sible for  its  own  decisions  and  acts;  and  each 
an  independent  unit  in  its  relation  with  the  State. 
But  it  is  clearly  possible  to  offer  inducements 
whereby  the  local  guilds  for  their  own  advantage, 
if  for  nothing  else,  will  be  linked  with  the  other 
guilds  of  the  industry,  forming  a  more  or  less 
coherent  body  or  assembly,  which  would  express 
the  united  will  of  the  trade.  A  concrete  example 
will  be  more  descriptive  than  theory. 

Take  the  building  trade.  It  covers  the  whole 
country  in  its  operations;  and  its  methods  and 
problems  must  be  very  different  in  different  parts. 
A  guild  building  country  cottages  and  farms  will 
need  many  broad  and  subtle  distinctions   which 


THE   THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


87 


would  make  it  uncomfortable  under  the  control 
of  men  mainly  engaged  in  building  factories  and 
streets  of  houses  in  towns.  And  quite  apart 
from  that  distinction,  the  stonemason  guilds  of 
the  north  may  have  different  views  from  the 
bricklaying  guilds  of  the  south ;  and  even  if  they 
had  the  same  views,  they  are  separated  by  a 
few  hundred  miles.  But  in  spite  of  their 
differences,  they  have  the  common  quality  that 
they  are  all  builders.  It  Will  be  all-important 
for  their  own  welfare  that  they  should  very 
frequently  meet  for  the  interchange  of  opinions 
concerning   all   that   they   possess    in   unity. 

Common    sense,    without    coercion    from    the 
State,    would    surely    quickly    bring    about    the 
formation  of  a  National  Building;  Congress  where 
all  the  local  building  guilds  could  be  represented  ; 
where  they  could  give  good  advice  and  receive 
it  in  return  from  their   fellow-craftsmen  of  the 
building  trade.     But  note  the  essential  difference 
between  this  National  Congress  and  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  National  Builders'  Guild.     In  the  case 
of   the   latter,    the    National    Guild,    the   central 
body,   once  elected,   would  be  a   coercive   body. 
A  resolution  passed  by  it,  a  law  sanctioned  by 
it,  would  be  binding  on  all  members  of  the  guild, 
and    would   control    the    local    units.      Whereas 
in    the    case    of    the    Congress,    the    association 
would  be  voluntary ;    the  united  resolutions  would 
be   nothing  more   than   advice,    which   the    local 
guilds    might    follow    or    reject    at    their    good- 
will. 


88 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


This  difference  between  government  by 
coercion  and  government  by  voluntary  agree- 
ment has  not  yet  been  fully  worked  out  by  the 
sociologist.  It  may  well  be  that  a  decision  as  to 
their  respective  legitimate  fields  might  clear  up 
a  great  many  of  the  problems  of  government. 
The  voluntary  system  is  very  intimately  connected 
with  the  Guild  system,  which  will  lose  its 
whole  essence  if  there  be  any  attempt  to  crush* 
it  into  the  coercive  mould  of  the  old  central- 
ized political  system.  In  practice,  it  certainly 
seems  very  possible  to  solve  the  differences 
between  the  local  and  national  guild  ideals  on 
these  lines;  thus  getting  the  best  of  both 
worlds.. 

The  local  guild  would  send  delegates  certainly 
for  annual,  perhaps  even  for  quarterly  or  monthly, 
congresses  which  would  consider  the  common 
problem  of  their  trade.  The  advice  of  the 
majority  would  be  expressed  in  the  ordinary  way 
by  a  vote ;  and  as  advice  it  would  be  conveyed 
to  the  local  bodies.  In  certain  cases,  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  guilds  Would  send  their  delegates 
with  power  to  make"  a  binding  contract  with  the 
rest.  It  might  be  a  promise  to  maintain  a  fixed 
price,  or  fixed  hours,  or  fixed  wages.  There 
would  naturally  be  no  reason  to  forbid  a  guild 
making  contracts  with  its  fellow-guilds,  so  long 
as  it  did  not  break  its  fundamental  charter  with 
the  State.  Thus  the  National  Congress  or  Asso- 
ciation might  become  coercive  if  the  members 
deliberately    choose    to    bind    themselves.       But 


THE   THIRD   PRINCIPLE 


89 


fundamentally,  it  would  be  a  voluntary  and 
advisory  body,  unless  it  were  otherwise  decided. 
The  coercion  would  be  in  each  individual  case  a 
matter  of  expediency;  and  not  already  decided, 
as  a  matter  of  general  theory. 

There  is  little  doubt  that,  in  almost  every  case, 
the  guilds  would  quickly  decide  that  it  was  to 
their  advantage  to  keep  a  permanent  staff  of 
officials  as  a  nucleus  for  their  periodical  con- 
gresses. It  would  be  the  duty  of  these  permanent 
officers  to  act  as  the  intelligence  department  or 
clearing-house  for  the  whole  trade.  The  figures 
of  supply  and  demand,  the  price  of  materials, 
in  short  everything  that  the  intelligent  private 
trader  tries  (usually  without  perfect  success)  to 
discover  to-day,  would  be  placed  before  the  guilds 
by  their  expert  clerks  and  statisticians.  Here 
would  be  kept  the  records  of  the  trade,  the 
Hbrary  of  technical  books,  perhaps  the  labora- 
tories for  industrial  research.  Indeed,  there  is 
no  reason  to  limit  the  scope  of  such  a  central 
organ;  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  dread  its 
illegitimate  power;  so  long  as  it  kept  firmly 
to  its  ideal  of  voluntary  action,  unless,  after  the 
maturest  dehberation,  it  decided  otherwise  in  any 
particular  case. 

Here  would  seem  to  be  the  right  blending 
of  the  local  with  the  central  :  the  most  generous 
freedom  of  independence  to  the  local  guild — 
for  the  practical  reason  that  only  freedom  is 
healthy  or  even  possible,  in  the  long  run  (for 
the  healthy  man  demands  it) — ^the  most  complete 


90 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


unity  for  advice  and  co-operation  and  education 
that  the  goodwill  of  the  collected  guilds  can 
devise.  It  is  only  the  despot  and  the  bureaucrat 
who  are  unable  to  conceive  of  unity  without 
coercion. 


CHAPTER   V 

CONSEQUENT   RESULTS   OF   MAIN 

PRINCIPLES 


IN    the    three    previous    chapters    have    been 
defined  the  three  main  principles  on   which 
the  Guild  system  stands.     In  practice  they  would 
admit  of  many  very  various  developments,  none  of 
which  would  be  necessarily  an  essential  part  of 
the    idea  :     they    might    or    might    not    follow, 
according    to   the    particular   local    or   industrial 
circumstances  of  each  case.     Indeed,  the  guilds 
will  probably  develop  in  some  such  varied  way. 
But  without  the  three  principles  already  discussed 
in  this  book,  there  would  be  no  Guild  idea  at 
all  :     they   are    the    minimum    without    which    it 
would  be  another  system  altogether,  or  no  system 
at  all.     To  repeat  these  three  dogmas  in  brief. 
First  :     the   main    basis    of    the   organization    of 
pubHc  life  should  be  a  classification  by  function 
or  trade;    because  it  is  the  most  important  fact 
in  a  citizen's   public   career.      A  man's   work  is 
his    most    important    contribution    to    his    State, 
and    his    citizenship    mainly    revolves    round    it. 
Secondly  :    the  guilds  must  be  self-managed,  for 
the  reason  that  the  workers  of  a  trade  are  the 
people    who    best    know    its    processes    and    can 
develop  it  on  the  most  productive   lines.      It  is 
in  this  way  that  the  material  object  of  the  Guild 
system    (i.e.   the   production   of   wealth)    can   be 
most  successfully  encouraged.     Thirdly  :    if  the 


91 


92 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


guilds    do    not    avoid    the    highly    centralizing 

tendency    of    modem     society,     then     they     will 

become  bureaucratic,  with   all  its   endless   evils. 

But,  having  been  dogmatic   to  that  extent,  it 

is  only  possible   to   discuss   the   consequences  of 

these  principles  rather  as  suggestions.     For  there 

is  a  liberality  of  thought   in  this  system  of  the 

guilds  which  is   innate  in   it — though  not  innate 

in    all   its    disciples.      So    many    disciples    have 

betrayed  their  masters.      If  we  really  mean  that 

the  workers   (in  the  fullest   sense  of  hands  and 

head)   should  be  organized  in  many  quite  small 

guilds    with   comparative    independence   in    each, 

then   it  naturally   follows   that    we   must   intend 

to    accept    the    very    varied    decisions    that    will 

inevitably  follow.      If   we  desire   a   rigid  dogma 

and   only  one,   then   naturally   we   shall   turn  to 

bureaucracy  and  the  machine-made  mind. 

A.    Variety    of    Experiments. 

It  is  wKen  one  realizes  the  varied  possibility 
of  guild  decisions  that  one  can  grasp  perhaps 
the  first  of  the  secondary  principles  to  be 
discussed  in  this  chapter.  A  serious  charge 
against  collectivism  was  that  it  tended  to  a  dull 
uniformity.  For  the  moment  it  might  be  the 
right  uniformity;  and  if  there  were  any  hope 
of  having  found  the  final  form  of  social  organiza- 
tion, then  one  might  have  been  satisfied.  But 
even  if  it  is  right  to-day,  surely  it  is  at  once 
necessary  to  start  doubting  whether  it  will  be 
right   for   the   new   circumstances   of   to-n^orrow, 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


93 


when  to-day's  system  may  easily  be  wrong.  Now 
in  the  variety  of  guild  experience  it  may  well 
happen  that  we  shall  find  just  what  we  want. 
There  will  be  that  interplay  of  forces  and  ideas 
which  will  have  progress  as  their  natural  result, 
rather  than  consciously  seek  it.  Freedom  of 
movement  is  one  of  the  essentials  of  a  healthy 
life  either  in  body  or  mind.  Tradition  is  the 
knowledge  that  comes  from  many  experiences 
— and  it  is  almost  the  only  knowledge  that  it 
is  safe  to  trust. 

B.   Sane  Competition. 

From  this  follows  another  important  possible 
result.  The  guilds  will  save  all  that  is  good  in 
Competition  which  Capitalism  and  Collectivism 
would  certainly  have  threatened.  Driven  des- 
perate by  the  unutterable  results  of  competition 
in  practice,  there  were  many  brave  people 
amongst  us  who  tried  to  prove  (and  believe)  that 
it  was  altogether  evil  and  that  we  could  do 
without  it.  As  a  theory  for  latter-day  saints, 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  our  brave 
arguments.  As  a  practice  for  present-day  sinners, 
we  were  trying  to  bury  our  heads  in  the  sand. 
The  gentle  prick  of  competition  develops  an 
energy  in  man;  although  the  thing  that  the 
plutocrats  call  competition  to-day  is  a  crude  affair 
that  arouses  no  energy,  but  merely  bludgeons 
its  victims  to  death.  There  is  a  vital  distinction 
between  playing  the  piano   and   dancing  on   it. 

Competition    under    the    Guild    system    would 


94 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


not  necessarily  be  the  scramble  it  is  to-day. 
It  is  probable  that  certain  limits  would  be  defined 
by  the  terms  of  the  guild-charters  granted  by 
the  State;  and  there  would  be  no  possibility  of 
driving  an  opponent  out  of  the  market  by 
sweating.  All  those  crude  methods  would  be 
ruled  out  by  the  reality  of  self-management — for 
workers  would  scarcely  consent  to  sweat  them- 
selves. It  would  not  be  a  crude  competition 
between  individual  traders,  which  is  necessarily 
very  wasteful,  because  the  factors  are  so  vague 
that  it  is  difficult  to  measure  them;  hence,  for 
example,  prices  may  be  cut  below  what  is 
necessary.  The  competition  between  guilds 
would  be  restricted  to  a  very  limited  field.  There 
would  be  only  a  certain  number  of  guilds  author- 
ized to  trade  within  a  definite  area;  for  that 
would  be  quite  a  legitimate  curb  on  the  competi- 
tive instinct.  No  guild  would  be  encouraged 
to  roam  the  land  to  make  its  fortune,  as  it  were. 
The  elements  of  competition  would  therefore  be 
definitely  known,  and  beyond  concealment.  The 
resulting  frankness  would  remove  one  very  dis- 
agreeable element  in  existing  trade  rivalry,  its 
intriguing  nature.  Competition  between  the 
guilds  would  rather  take  the  form  of  a  semi- 
public  contest,  somewhat  like  the  open  competi- 
tion of  architects  for  a  public  building — though 
the  judges  would  not  be  town  councillors  wire- 
pulling jobs  for  their  friends  I 

If    the    human     passion     for     strife     can     be 
preserved,  yet  tamed  almost,  with  due  curbs  on 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


95 


its  vulgarities,  surely  that  will  be  an  advantage. 
At  the  very  least,  it  should  meet  the  case  of 
those  stubborn  people  who  said  they  themselves 
were  quite  unselfish  enough  to  accept  Socialism, 
only  they  saw  in  it  the  ruin  of  man  by  making 
him  too  like  a  peaceful  sheep.  If  we  can 
prove  this  point,  so  many  of  our  opponents 
will  be  brought  face  to  face  with  their  unsel- 
fishness. 

Surely  there  will  be  many  advantages  if  just 
a  healthy  competition — and  not  more  than 
healthy,  remember — can  be  maintained  in  a  town 
between,  for  example,  a  reasonable  number  of 
competing  bakers'  guilds.  It  would  not  be  a 
matter  of  six  bakers'  carts  from  different  shops 
calHng  on  six  next-door  neighbours,  which  must 
frequently  happen  to-day.  That  is  not  healthy 
competition,  but  competition  run  raving  mad. 
But  it  would  be  another  ^matter  if  we  had  the 
choice  between  two  or  even  three  bread-making 
guilds  within  our  ward.  There  would  probably 
be  a  definite  area  of  trade  laid  down  in  their 
charter;  for  the  community  would  have  the  right 
to  prevent  the  waste  of  transit  if  an  avaricious 
guild  tried  to  gather  its  trade  at  a  recklessly 
extravagant  cost  of  delivery.  There  are  other 
trades  where  the  advantages  of  competition  could 
never  be  worth  its  disadvantages.  For  example, 
nobody  would  think  it  good  policy,  as  a  normal 
thing,  to  build  more  than  one  railway  line  between 
the  same  places.  There  is  not  that  delicate 
personal  touch  in  running  a  railway  that  there 


i' 


96 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


is  in  handling  dough;  and,  further,  a  railway 
line  is  always  a  nasty  scar  across  a  country- 
side. 

C.   Peace  Jul  Transition. 

There  is  another  very  valuable  advantage  in 
the  Guild  system  over  any  other  suggestion  for 
social  reform.  Only  the  illiterate  still  believe  in 
the  Revolution  as  a  mode  of  social  advance.  The 
one  thing  inevitable  about  a  revolution  is  its 
destructiveness.  Force  is  almost  always  immoral, 
because  it  means  the  supremacy  of  crude  muscle 
over  more  subtle  brains.  There  are,  of  course, 
moments  in  history  when  the  ultimate  human 
right  of  personal  dignity  gives  the  corresponding 
right  of  self-defence,  and  self-defence  may  some- 
times, on  the  surface,  take  an  aggressive  form. 
But  as  a  normal  fact  in  history,  revolutionary  and 
physical  force  is  always  useless,  just  because  it 
does  not  do  what  it  professes  to  do.  It  does 
not  reform  anything,  but  rather  destroys  most 
things. 

Even  the  more  apparently  peaceful  industrial 
revolutions,  when  blood  is  not  shed,  are  equally 
destructive  in  the  end.  Try  to  estimate  the 
colossal  loss  of  human  energy  and  life  caused 
by  the  sudden  change  in  the  factory  system 
which  began  in  the  eighteenth  century.  People 
were  not  shot  in  the  streets,  perhaps;  but  they 
were  starved  and  stunted  at  home,  which  came 
to  a  worse  thing  in  the  long  run.  Indeed,  the 
Industrial     Revolution    probably     wasted    more 


CONSEQUENT    RESULTS 


97 


human  life  and  energy  than  all  the  wars  of 
the  last  two  centuries  together. 

It  seems  to  be  an  inevitable  quality  of  human 
nature  that  it  cannot  undergo  sudden  changes. 
Just  as  it  took  many  ages  to  teach  an  ape  to 
stand  erect  and  call  himself  a  man,  so  it  may 
take  centuries  to  teach  men  how  to  be  good 
industrialists  instead  of  nomadic  horse  and  cattle 
rearers.  A  system  which  demands  any  sudden 
changes  is  ruled  out  of  court,  not  necessarily 
because  it  is  illogical  in  itself,  but  simply  because 
man  is  not  capable  of  violent  breaks  in  his 
traditions.  One  might  as  well  assume  that  he 
could  to-morrow  morning  have  breakfast  while 
standing  on  his  head.  Revolution^  assumes  the 
impossible. 

Now  the  Guild  system  does  seem  to  have  those 
malleable  qualities  which  allow  of  gentle  changes. 
It  assumes  nothing  sudden  :  it  agrees  that  man 
will  be  to-morrow  not  so  very  different  from 
what  he  is  to-day.  He  may  wear  different 
clothes;  he  may  ride  in  a  taxi  instead  of  a 
two-horse  bus  or  a  Sedan-chair.  But  at  heart, 
he  will  bte  not  very  unlike  the  men  and  women 
whom  William  the  Conqueror  found  here  more 
than  eight  hundred  years  ago.  Reformers  do 
not  always  realize  that  it  is  the  deep-rooted 
qualities  of  human  nature  that  make  or  mar 
their  schemes.  They  think  that  if  they  can 
modify  some  surface  fact,  if  they  can  make  men 
live  in  a  cottage  instead  of  camping  on  a 
common,    that    they    have    made    some    radical 

7 


98 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


CONSEQUENT   RESULTS 


99 


difference.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
truth.  The  chief  failing  of  reformers  is  that 
they  know  so  little  about  men.  Their  operations 
on  the  human  organism  are  wonderfully 
reminiscent  of  what  would  happen  if  an  earthly 
surgeon  began  to  operate  on  a  man  from  Mars, 
of  whose  internal  machinery  he   knew  nothing. 

But  the  Guild  system  makes  no  sudden 
demands.  It  holds  out  no  sensational  hopes.  It 
finds  men  not  altogether  wise,  or  free  from 
avarice,  or  void  of  ambition;  only  moderately 
energetic,  and  sometimes  a  Httle  lazy  if  there  be 
no  spur  to  labour.  The  Guild  idea  denies  none 
of  these  undeniable  facts;  it  is  not  more 
ambitious  than  to  suggest  an  older  system  under 
which  these  weaknesses  of  men  did  not  have 
such    dominating    sway. 

It  was  written  a  moment  ago  that  the  guilds- 
men  do  not  propose  any  radical  changes;  but 
the  statement  must  be  modified.  For  one  radical 
change  we  do  ask.  That  is,  the  most  ruthless 
suppression  of  the  centralizing  autocracy  and 
bureaucracy  which  have  grown  like  an  incubus 
in  the  national  life.  We  do  want  Westminster 
and  Whitehall  deprived  of  their  illegitimate 
powers  over  our  lives.  In  other  words,  we  ask 
for  the  deportation  from  our  public  life  of  those 
small  groups  of  industrial  money-lenders  who 
control  the  aforesaid  Westminster  and  Whitehall 
^s  if  they  were  their  private  estate  offices — 
which  in  truth  they  almost  are. 

Now,  be  it  noted,  that  however  sudden  this 


change  might  be  (not  that  there  is  any  likelihood 
of  its  being  sudden)  it  would  not  be  one  of 
those  reversals  of  human  tradition  to  which 
reference  was  made  above.  Central  tyranny  has 
always  been  as  the  surface  of  human  society. 
It  is  not  denied  that  it  has  been  of  gigantic  effect; 
it  has  strangled  man  times  out  of  number.  But  it 
has  always  been  imposed  on  him  from  above, 
from  outside.  It  was  never  one  of  his  traditions 
to  be  governed  by  bureaucrats.  It  was  often 
his  own  tradition  to  choose  a  king,  or  even  an 
hereditary  royal  house;  but  it  is  not  (as 
maintained  in  the  first  chapter)  a  necessary 
function  of  a  royal  house  to  interfere  with  the 
self-government  of  its  people.  There  were  many 
kings  long  before  people  thought  of  tolerating 
any  kingly  rights  over  their  private  lives.  The 
king's  law,  in  the  sense  of  an  interference  with 
his  people's  customs,  is  almost  a  new  idea.  So 
in  sweeping  away  a  great  bulk  of  central  law 
and  central  organization,  we  would  be  only 
sweeping  away  the  things  of  the  surface ;  leaving 
the  human  nature  and  its  traditions  beneath, 
merely  the  freer  because  of  the  clearing  above. 
Thus  the  guilds  might  rather  be  called  Reaction 
than  Revolution. 

In  demanding  freedom  from  the  weight  of 
central  government  the  guildsmen  therefore  are 
asking  for  merely  a  negative  change.  Even 
this  they  do  not  suggest  should  be  too  sudden; 
though  "  human  nature  "  would  not  much  suffer 
if  it  were,  for  it  is  not  a  part  of  human  nature, 


100 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


except  in  a  very  secondary  sense.  But  man  is 
such  a  delicate  growth  that  he  cannot  bear  even 
to  part  with  evil  too  suddenly.  So  the  reform, 
or  clearing  away,  of  the  system  of  central  govern- 
ment may,  unfortunately,  be  a  somewhat  slow 
process;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  evolution 
of  the  Guild  system  which  is  not  compatible  with 
this.  Just  as  the  central  government  has 
gradually  taken  away  local  and  industrial  powers 
from  the  smaller  organs  of  society,  so  it  may 
perhaps  gradually  transfer  them  back. 

On  the  internal   side,   the   process   by   which 
a   trading   company   of   to-day   became   a   guild 
of    to-morrow,    might    be    a    slow    development. 
Sharing    of   profits    might    be    followed    by    the 
natural  sequence  of  sharing  in  the  responsibility 
of  making  those  profits,  namely,  co-operation  in 
the     management.       Co-operative     management 
would  naturally  lead  sooner  or  later  to  an  entirely 
democratic  basis  for  the  whole  industry ;    that  is, 
to  an  equaUty  of  power  and  profits  between  all 
the  members.      And   there  one   would  have   the 
guild  already  made,  to  be  fitted  into  the  social 
organism  as  soon  as  the  whole  community  had 
the  wit  to  use  it.     But  note  how  gradual  all  this 
will    be;     never    quicker    than    the    capacity    of 
the  members  for  the  next  step.     If  the  members 
are  ready,  then  the  process  of  change  may  be 
as   quick  as   they   like.      Until   they   are   ready, 
quickness    would    not    lead    to    success — but    to 
disaster.     The  guildsmen  will  not  be  slow,  unless 
for  the  very   good   reason   that   they   cannot  be 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


101 


quick.  The  system  is  not  recommended  because 
it  may  be  slow;  but  just  because  no  human 
social  idea  has  ever  yet  succeeded  in  being  quick. 
By  all  means  make  quickness  an  ideal  to  strive 
for;  but  let  us  not  mistake  an  ideal  for  an 
accomplishment. 

D.     The     Education     of    the     Workers. 

The  last  section,  suggesting  that  the  possibility 
of  advance  depends  on  the  capacity  of  the 
individuals  for  taking  the  next  step,  leads  on 
naturally  to  the  further  point  that  the  Guild 
system  is  also  based  on  the  soundest  educational 
principles.  In  so  far  as  every  member  of  a 
guild  will  finally  have  a  voice  in  its  management, 
to  that  extent  every  guild  will  be  a  technical 
school;  wherein  the  members  can  learn  every 
side  of  their  craft ;  from  its  elementary  processes, 
to  its  complex  managerial  problems. 

When  one  arrives  at  questions  of  practical 
trade  and  industry  the  atmosphere  breathed  is 
altogether  different  from  the  vague  sentimentality 
of  political  and  bureaucratic  life.  In  industry, 
one  is  driven  to  face  facts;  the  chief  business 
of  the  politician  is  to  avoid  them.  It  is  by  no 
means  the  least  of  the  guild  virtues  that  it  will 
bring  back  our  public  life  to  the  region  of  hard 
facts.  It  will  teach  the  citizen  that  there  is  no 
more  useful  public  work  than  the  production  of 
something  useful — ^it  may  be  a  poem  or  a  potato. 
That  idea  once  grasped,  the  citizen  will  then 
realize  that  there  is  only  one  path  to  the  produc- 


102 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


r  i^ 


p  .|ii. 


tion  of  the  useful ;  to  wit,  the  precise  knowledge 
of  the  best  method  of  producing  it.  It  is  hard  to 
exaggerate  the  difference  such  a  conception  of 
fact  and  knowledge  would  make  in  the  life  of  a 
society. 

With  our  public  life  based  on  the  practical 
production  of  national  wealth  there  would  be 
some  considerable  hope  of  purifying  it.  Once 
allow  a  man  to  discuss  that  misty  shadow 
called  a  "  political  ideal,"  and  the  High  Courts 
of  Justice  and  all  their  judges  cannot  tie  him 
down  to  a  definite  statement  or  a  bindable 
promise.  When  this  confirmed  wriggler  goes 
further  and  discusses  a  dozen  divers  and  usually 
inconsistent  political  ideals  at  the  same  time, 
little  wonder  that  the  elector,  in  a  moment  of 
admiration,  thinks  he  has  been  addressed  by  a 
superman.  Whereas  it  was  only  a  first-class 
conjurer,  with  the  added  qualities  of  an 
experienced  salesman.  If  we  would  get  rid  of 
the  charlatan  in  public  life,  there  is  no  surer 
way  than  to  discuss  facts  instead  of  sentiments. 

One  very  valuable  result  will  be  to  convince 
the  Labour  movement  that  if  it  desires  to  control 
the  wealth  of  the  country,  on  behalf  of  the 
workers,  there  is  no  short-cut  to  victory.  The 
workers  will  not  control  the  wealth  until  they 
know  how  to  produce  it  themselves  without  the 
assistance  of  the  capitalist.  The  reason  why  the 
plutocrat  has  his  men  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand 
is  because  the  workers  are  not  in  a  position  to 
step    into    his    place    and    conduct    the    industry 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


103 


without  him.  What  other  reason  can  there  be? 
A  few  shillings  per  head  from  the  working  class 
would  quickly  raise  the  capital  necessary  to  make 
a  trial  of  democratic  management  in  any  industry. 
Why  do  they  not  raise  it,  and  become  their 
own  masters?  Mainly  because  they  have  not 
suflficient  knowledge  of  the  processes  of  their 
trade,  either  on  the  technical  productive  side 
or  on  the   financial   and   commercial   side. 

The  Guild  system  would  tend  to  give  the 
workers  just  this  insight  that  is  now  their  chief 
lack.  They  have  the  main  key  to  the  industrial 
position  in  their  hands,  because  they  alone  can 
provide  the  labour.  They  surrender  what  might 
be  an  impregnable  position  to  their  masters, 
mainly  because  they  are  not  able  to  use  their 
labour  themselves.  Until  they  make  up  their 
minds  to  master  the  whole  knowledge  of  their 
crafts,  from  top  to  bottom,  so  long  will  Labour 
be  helpless — and  one  might  almost  add,  that  it 
will  deserve  its  fate,  and  the  plutocrats  will 
almost  deserve  their  victory.  If  it  were  only 
as  a  matter  of  education,  it  would  be  wise  of 
the  workers  to  accept  that  instalment  of  reform 
called  co-partnership  and  co -management.  In 
practice,  even  co-partnership  would  inevitably 
carry  with  it  the  first  steps  in  co -manage- 
ment. It  is  hard  to  understand  why  such  a 
first  step  is  so  bitterly  resisted  by  some  of  the 
men  who  profess  to  write  for  the  working  class. 
If  the  ambition  and  the  dignity  of  Labour  are 
in  danger  of  being  so  easily  satisfied  by  a  con- 


104 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


cession  of  this  kind,  then  they  must  be  of  a 
poor,  sickly  quality.  A  quite  trivial  knowledge 
of  history  and  human  nature  would  teach  these 
timid  souls  that  nothing]  so  spurs  on  ambition  as 
the  beginning  of  success.  It  is  not  the  down- 
trodden who  rebel  easily;  it  is  those  who  have 
breathed  the  fine  scent  of  victory  in  their  nostrils 
and  clamour  for  more.  Perhaps,  after  all, 
ambition  may  be  a  poor  thing;  it  may  have 
the  elements  of  sickness.  But,  certainly,  so 
long  as  we  call  ambition  a  virtue,  then  let  us 
realize  that  its  fires  are  fed  by  success.  Even 
the  modest  heights  of  co-partnership  and  co- 
management,  and  the  similar  homely  virtues  of 
the  Whitley  Reports  and  its  kind,  may  do  much 
good,  and  certainly  cannot  do  any  harm;  unless 
the  workers  are  ready  to  acknowledge  that  they 
are  so  easily  duped. 

E.    The  Democratic  Distribution   of  Powder  and 

Wealth. 

There  are  those  whose  ultimate  object  in 
desiring  the  Guild  system'  is  that  they  are  eager 
for  the  triumph  of  democracy  over  autocracy, 
for  the  victory  of  the  poor  over  the  plutocrat. 
They  have  seen  how  bureaucracy  is  so  easily 
captured  by  the  men  in  possession,  and  so  hardly 
to  be  used  by  the  poor  for  their  own  defence. 
The  Guild  system,  as  already  discussed,  is 
obviously  a  good  plan  for  increasing  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth  and  avoiding  the  present  waste 
and  inefficiency.     As  a  rational  business  system. 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


105 


it  could  stand  on  that  merit,  and  win  easily. 
But  it  is  theoretically  possible  for  the  guilds  to 
make  wealth  for  the  plutocrats.  However, 
in  practice  that  will  be  impossible.  It  may  be 
regarded  as  a  certainty  that  the  adoption  of  the 
Guild  system  will  be  a  triumph  of  the  many 
poor  over  the  few  very  rich. 

The  problem  of  equality  of  wages  within  a 
guild  has  already  been  mentioned  in  the  chapter 
on  self -management.  There  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  even  the  most  democratic  of  guilds 
will  refuse  to  give  higher  wages  to  those  who  do 
higher  work.  Certainly,  equality  of  reward  is 
not  an  inherent  part  of  the  system,  though 
it  is  certainly  an  ideal  for  the  perfect  man. 
If  the  promise  of  increased  reward  is  the  most 
satisfactory  way  of  encouraging  human  beings 
to  do  increased  work,  then  sensible  human  beings 
will  so  act — ^principles  and  other  lofty  things 
notwithstanding.  But  apart  from  the  rewarding 
of  special  merit,  there  will  undoubtedly  be  a 
general  levelling  of  the  wealth  of  the  community. 
Smart  bankers  and  popular  novelists  will  no 
longer  be  judged  worthy  of  the  grotesque  sums 
which  they  seize  from  the  public  revenue.  They 
may  both  continue  to  receive  more  than  the 
modest  citizen  who  can  only  sweep  the  streets; 
but  the  man  with  a  passion  for  finance  or  a 
taste  for  literature  will  be  tempted  to  display 
his  peculiar  abilities  for  something  far  less  than 
his  spoils  of  to-day.  They  will  be  content  with 
as    much    fame    and    rather    less    fortune.      The 


106 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


*'  leisured  class  "  (our  polite  term  for  the  lazy 
class)  will,  of  course,  disappear.  For  there  will 
be  no  guild  to  contain  them.  If  they  have  any 
of  the  qualities  of  the  wandering  minstrel  or 
the  clown,  they  may  find  a  quiet  backwater  of 
life  in  those  Bohemian  circles  whose  inhabitants 
have  often  enough  good  taste  to  prefer  happiness 
and  a  clean  conscience  to  success— for  ambition, 
after  all,  is  really  a  plutocrat*s  virtue  at  the 
best,  and  most  of  his  virtues  are  vices.  One 
hopes  there  will  be  room  for  many  idle  dreamers 
in  the  Guild  State;  but  they  must  pay  for  that 
proud  position  by   sacrificing  the   bulk   of  their 

incomes. 

The  Guild  system  will  inevitably  put  power  into^ 
the    hands    of    the    majority— just    as    inevita.bly* 
as  the  Bureaucratic   system  has   put   power  into 
the    hands    of    a    very    few;      and    it   would    be 
ridiculous  to  imagine  for  one  moment  that   the 
possession   of   such   a   power   will   not   naturally 
result    in    a     fairer     sharing     of     the     national 
wealth.     But  it  will  not  be  an  absolute  equality, 
as  already  stated;     and  this,  because,  first,  it  is 
exceedingly  difficult  to  get  perfect  equality,  and 
secondly    because   no    one    will    very    insistently 
demand    it.      As    to    the    difficulty,    it    will,    for 
example,   be   no   easy   task   to   ensure   that   one 
guild    will   not    receive    a    greater    reward    than 
another.      It  might   be   done   at   the   cost  of  an 
infinite  amount  of  book-keeping.     But  would  it 
be    worth   it?     It    will,    one    hopes,    be   a    deep 
characteristic  of  the  Guild  idea,  that  nothing  will 


CONSEQUENT  RESULTS 


10? 


be  held  worth  much  book-keeping — ^which  was 
mainly  invented  for  usurers  and  misers,  and  not 
for  honest  workmen.  The  people  who  insist 
so  much  on  the  need  for  perfect  equality  of 
wages,  are  just  those  who  attach  too  much  impor- 
tance to  the  factor  of  material  reward.  A  man 
who  is  interested  above  all  else  in  his  work,  will 
not  be  unutterably  depressed  if  another  receives 
a  rather  greater  reward  for  his  eff"orts.  That 
would  only  annoy  a  money-lender. 

F.    The   Healing    of    Social    Wounds. 

The  average  worker  will  not  be  content  until 
he  gets  better  pay  and  more  dignity  :  and  he 
is  right  in  refusing  any  other  terms.  A  clever 
plutocracy  might  give  him  better  pay;  but 
the  worker  does  not  attach  the  same  absolute 
importance  to  pay  that  his  more  vulgar  masters 
do.  He  must  also  have  his  human  dignity 
preserved.  It  is  in  granting  this  that  the  Guild 
system  ofi'ers  more  than  any  other,  whether  it 
be  Bureaucracy,  Plutocracy,  Monarchy  or  Aris- 
tocracy. None  of  these  gives  the  same  chance 
to  merit  and  self-respect,  that  would  alone  be 
recognized  in  the  more  intimate  and  more 
technical  circle  of  the  guilds. 

Such  are  some  of  the  secondary  principles 
and  efi"ects  which  seem  naturally  to  follow  the 
three  main  principles  of  the  Guild  State.  It 
is  one  of  the  virtues  of  that  system  that  we  are 
not  at  all  sure  what  will  follow  it.  A  firm  belief 
that  human  beings,  freed  from  external  coercion, 


108 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


will  keep  within  the  sane  limits  of  their  human 
traditions  compels  one  to  look  to  the  past  for 
the  main  outlines  of  the  future .  The  Future 
will  probably  be  only  a  dignified  improvement 
of  the  Past,  at  the  best;  and  it  will  be  a  very 
good  best  if  it  merely  succeeds  in  escaping  from 
the  Present.  It  is  a  little  difficult  to  realize  that 
what  we  imagine  to  be  the  deep-rooted  character 
of  the  present  system  is  not  deep  or  rooted  at 
all,  but  merely  the  floating  debris,  cast  up  as 
the  wreckage  of  an  appalUng  social  disaster, 
but,  after  all,  only  one  wrecked  vessel  out  of 
the  vast  fleets  of  humanity  that  are  still  sailing 
safely  to  port.  We  in  England  have  seen  more 
of  the  catastrophe  than  have  others,  undoubtedly ; 
unless  we  except  those  other  two  great  nations 
which  have,  like  ourselves,  bartered  their  souls 
for  material  wealth;  to  wit,  the  United  States  of 
America  and  Germany.  There  are  plenty  of 
evils  in  the  world,  elsewhere;  but  perhaps  it 
is  only  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
Germany  and  ourselves,  who,  having  wandered 
so  far  from  decent  human  traditions,  will  have 
much  trouble  to  return  again  to  sanity. 


CHAPTER   VI 


RELATIONS    BETWEEN    GUILDS    AND 

STATE 

HAVING  assumed  that  organization  by  func- 
tion— ^that  is  by  producing  and  trading  and 
professional  guilds — ^is  the  main  basis  of  the 
healthy  State,  at  the  first  glance  it  might  seem 
that  the  whole  ground  of  national  government 
is  thereby  covered.  It  might  be  considered  that 
since  every  citizen  of  a  State  should  be  engaged 
in  work  of  some  kind  or  another,  therefore  he 
would  be  represented  in  one  of  the  guilds. 
Theoretically  that  argument  is  very  reasonable; 
link  all  the  guilds  together  in  a  national  assembly 
or  parhament,  and  we  would  have  the  ideal  State 
as  a  complete  whole.  But  for  the  first  stages, 
at  any  rate,  there  would  be  all  sorts  of  little 
nooks  and  crannies  left  outside,  and  hundreds, 
of  quite  useful  citizens  who  would  not  be 
clearly  sortable  into  appropriate  guilds.  Besides, 
although  the  guild  would  represent  the  man  who 
was  a  member  of  it,  he  would  be  continually 
dealing  with  other  guilds,  both  as  a  producer 
and  as  a  btiyer  of  their  wares.  The  ordinary 
man  would  have  two  definite  sides  even  as  a 
member  of  a  very  complete  Guild  State.  He 
would  be  producer  in  particular  and  citizen  in 
general.  It  is  the  analysis  of  his  position  as 
citizen  that  is  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 
It    is   obvious    that    we    are    on    much    more 

109 


110 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


indefinite  grounds  than  in  the  previous  part  of 
the  argument.     The  guild,   rightly  or   wrongly, 
has   been  taken   as  a   fixed  point   in  the  State, 
as  the  essential  centre  of  it.     It  therefore  follows 
that  any  other  national  factors  must  be  relative 
to  this  fixed  central  point.      Having  determmed 
that   the   guild   is   essential,    all   other    ideas   are 
merely  matters  of  expediency  and  convenience. 
They  have  to  fit  ia  with  the  main  idea  of  organ- 
ization   by    function.      It    is    unwise    to    be   too 
dogmatic  on  this  subject  of  the  relation  of  the 
State   to  the   guilds;     for   it   is   very  difficult   to 
be  certain  what  form  that  relationship  will  take. 
It  may  be  found  that  a  very  sUght  State  structure 
will  suffice  to  support  the  Guild  organs.     On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  very  sub- 
stantial State  will  be  necessary.      Anyhow,  it  is 
certain  that  in  the  beginning  at   least  the  State 
will  have  to  do  much  which  later  may  be  done 
by    the    guilds,    without    external    assistance. 

A  large  part  of  the  early  problem  will  be  of  a 
negative  kind.  The  first  object  of  the  reformers 
will  be  to  get  rid  of  that  blighting,  corrupting, 
influence  of  central  control  which  at  present 
prevents  healthy  action.  The  first  thing  to  do 
with  the  State  is  not  to  give  it  new  powers,  but 
rather  to  take  away  those  illegitimate  powers 
which  it  should  never  have  possessed.  The 
pohtical  reform  of  the  present  governing  system 
is  necessarily  a  part  of  the  Guild  problem  ;  for 
the  same  reason  that  one  drains  a  marsh  before 
starting  to  build  upon  it.     One  could  no  more 


THE  STATE 


111 


expect  the  present  politicians  to  reform  our  society 
than   one   could   hope   that   a   committee   of  the 
Stock  Exchange  would  revive  good  taste  in  art. 
The  central  State  may  play  a  great  part  under 
the   Guild  system;     but   it   is   quite   certain  that 
this  cannot  happen  in  the  lifetime  of  the  present 
political  constitution.      We  at  least  owe  a  debt 
of  gratitude  to  the  present  politicians  for  showing 
us  so  clearly  all  that  must  be  avoided.      What- 
ever  the   central   government   organ   may   be,    it 
certainly  cannot  be   a  parliament   controlled  by 
the  clique  who  masquerade  under  the  two-party 
system.     We  may  eventually  find  a  parliamentary 
system  of  government   by  Lords   and   Commons 
a  good  thing;    but  we  know  that  government  by 
a  small  group  of  political  intriguers  is  an  utterly 
bad  thing,  and  has  very  little  to  do  with  Lords 
or    Commons,    or,    indeed,    with    representative 
government  at  all. 

The  Party  system  is  mainly  based  on  a 
ridiculous  rule  by  which  a  government  can 
dissolve  a  parliament  at  its  discretion;  in  other 
words,  on  its  power  of  dragging  down  in  its 
fall  the  whole  Cabinet  and  all  the  members 
of  the  Commons.  So  long  as  a  whole  parliament 
vidll  cease  unless  the  Government  supporters  obey 
the  autocratic  orders  of  its  Cabinet;  in  other 
words,  so  long  as  a  government  can  force  its 
supporters  to  vote  as  it  commands,  so  long  will 
our  political  system  be  a  laughing-stock.  As  it 
exists  to-day,  if  the  members  of  the  Commons 
refuse  to  obey,   there  is  a  Government   defeat; 


112 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


i:     ! 


which  usually  means  a  dissolution.      How  many 
men  are  there  in  the  House  of  Commons  who 
would  not  rather  sacrifice  their  consciences  than 
their   seats?    It   may   be    replied   that   until  our 
poHticians   have   honesty,    any   system    will   fail. 
But   at  least   we  can  !see   to  it  that  we  do  not 
give  every  encouragement  to  political  adventurers. 
If  the   House  of  Commons   were   given   a  fixed 
life   of,   say,    five   years;     and   a   direct  vote   of 
censure,  asking  for  the  Government's  resignation, 
were  necessary  before  a  Cabinet  could  appeal  to 
the   country;     then   a   vote   in   the    House;  could 
be  free  of  all  motives  except  the  desire  to  assist 
or  defeat  the  precise  question  in  dispute  at  the 
moment.       Then,    again,    why    should    a    whole 
government  fall  just  because  a  majority  of  the 
members    of    the    Commons    disapprove    of    one 
clause  in  one  bill?    Here  again  is  a  system  which 
surely  was  deliberately  designed  to  make  a  slave 
of  the  individual  in  order  to  strengthen  the  men 
who   control.      Each   member   of   a   government 
should  be  chosen   (by  the  House  of  Commons) 
for  his  definite  work;     if  he  fails  to  retain  the 
approval  of  the  House,  and  a  bill  introduced  by 
him   is   defeated,    then   let   him,   and   him  alone, 
retire  from  office.     There  is  no  reason  in  Chris- 
tendom  why  a  whole   Cabinet   should   fall   with 
him.    There  will  be  political  corruption  until  every 
vote  in  the  Commons  can  be  freely  given  on  its 
own  merits.      The   Party  system  is  planned  to 
prevent  that  introduction  of  common  sense. 
Let  us  now  consider  the  necessary  functions 


THE  STATE 


113 


of  a  central  government  in  a  Guild  State.  We 
must  first  realize  that  the  guilds  will  absorb  a 
vast  amount  of  the  work  which  at  present  comes 
under  the  control  of  the  central  departments. 
Such  affairs  as  Education  and  Public  Health  will 
be  sorted  out  to  the  various  guilds  of  education, 
guilds  of  doctors,  and  sanitary  engineers  con- 
cerned. If  the  teachers  and  the  doctors  cannot 
give  us  good  health  and  sound  education,  then 
it  is  clear  that  we  have  got  to  a  cul-de-sac  in 
nature ;  and  it  would  be  merely  childish  to  hand 
over  the  impossible  to  politicians  and  bureaucrats. 
That  would  be  making  the  impossible  also  intoler- 
able. Once  accept  the  Guild  system,  and  it 
follows  that  the  central  government  is  relieved 
of  a  vast  bulk  of  its  functions;  or,  at  least,  ;it 
will  assign  these  to  the  guilds  to  execute  them 
as  its  agents. 

With  all  the  functions  of  production,  in  its 
widest  sense,  transferred  to  the  guilds,  what  will 
remain  in  the  hands  of  the  central  administration? 
It  is  dangerous  to  be  dogmatic  on  this  point.  As 
suggested  above,  there  is  no  great  principle  to 
guide  us  :  it  is  rather  a  matter  of  practical 
convenience.  We  will  leave  everything  to  the 
State  which  the  guilds  cannot  conduct  with 
greater  skill  as  professionals. 

Take  the  case  of  Foreign  AfTairs.  It  is  a 
little  difficult  to  think  of  a  Guild  of  Diplomats. 
It  might  even  need  no  little  argument  to  persuade 
decent  persons,  under  the  new  conditions,  to  allow 
themselves    to    bear    the    name    of   a    profession 

8 


114 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE   STATE 


115 


that  has  now  no  sweet  flavour  in  the  mouths 
of  most  people  who  desire  common  honesty  and 
conmion  sense.  The  men  who  allowed  England 
to  drift  unwarned  into  the  Great  War,  did  not 
know  their  trade  :  the  men  who  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  outwitted  by  the  crudities  of  German 
blood  and  thunder,  did  not  know  the  rudiments 
of  their  craft.  But  one  does  not  "  produce  ** 
international  treaties  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
the  word.  It  will  be  one  of  the  few  matters 
where  the  wishes  of  the  public  will  overrule  the 
professional  advice  of  the  diplomatic  draftsmen. 
We  have  had  too  much  of  diplomatists  with  a 
free  hand  :  the  free  hand  might  he  all  right,  of 
course,  if  it  had  gone  with  average  btains  and 
the  honour  of  the  State  :  but,  so  far,  diplo- 
matists have  considered  the  interests  of  a  small 
class — as  often  as  not  from  sheer  stupidity;  and 
when  honest  themselves,  they  have  rarely  had 
the  courage  to  show  it.  Anyhow,  there  will 
prcH^ably  not  be  a  Guild  of  Diplomacy.  The 
matter  will  be  left  under  the  control  of  a  body 
of  secretaries  directly  controlled,  as  at  present, 
by  a  minister  or  committee  of  the  central 
assembly. 

As  long  as  we  are  vulgar  barbarians,  we  shall 
continue  to  waste  our  national  wealth  on  an 
army  and  a  navy.  These,  again,  can  scarcely 
be  guilds;  it  would  not  be  convenient,  for  many 
-easons,  to  allow  them  to  be  self-managing. 
War  as  a  profession  would  naturally  only  attract 
a  very  inferior  class  of  mind,  as  it  has  usually 


li  •  r 


done  in  the  past — with  many  brilliant  excep- 
tions, of  course.  The  ordinary  professional 
soldier  would  be  something  very  different  from 
the  many  great  men  who  rushed  to  support  their 
country  and  their  principles  in  a  temporary  peril. 
While,  here  again,  we  could  scarcely  ask  an 
Army  Guild  to  "  produce  "  us  a  victory,  as  we 
would  ask  the  bootmakers  to  produce  boots.  So 
the  Army  and  Navy,  like  the  diplomatic  service, 
will  remain  as  the  directly  controlled  servants 
of  the  State.  But  this  problem,  one  hopes,  is 
only  a  very  temporary  one;  at  the  worst  they 
will  have  vanished  from  civilization  within  a  few 
decades.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  gigantic  joke 
that  the  professional  soldier  has  so  often  prided 
himself  on  saving  civilization;  forgetting  that 
had  it  not  been  for  the  generals  and  the  diplo- 
matists there  would  have  been  very  few  dangers 
from  which  to  be  saved. 

Having  dismissed  some  of  the  unimportant 
sides  of  central  government,  there  remains  those 
functions  that  are  really  essential.  There  will 
be  under  the  Guild  system,  as  at  present,  a 
vast  mass  of  legislation  that  will  be  common 
to  the  whole  nation.  Such,  for  example,  as  the 
laws  laying  down  a  national  minimum.  That 
is,  the  united  citizens  will  decide  that  there  shall 
be  a  limit  below  which  the  standard  of  life  must 
not  fall.  There  will  probably  be  a  minimum 
wage ;  a  maximum  for  working  hours ;  standard 
rules  for  health  conditions.  Whether  it  will  be 
the  duty  of  each  guild  to  support  its  unemployed 


116 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


and  pay  its  own  old-age  pensions;  whether,  in 
short,  each  trade  must  bear  its  own  burdens  as 
well  as  its  profits ;  all  that  is  a  matter  of  detail, 
the  result  of  which  will  not  be  known  until  it 
is  settled.  It  is  just  one  of  those  cases  where  a 
good  deal  of  time  is  wasted  in  discussions  of 
theory;  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  practical 
expediency  to  be  decided  when  the  moment 
arrives. 

The   criminal  laws,   the   law  of  contracts  and 
torts,  will  require  common  control  by  the  whole 
State.      But   it    is    quite   possible    that,    just   as 
one    very    usual    rule    of    the    mediaeval    guilds 
ordered  all  civil  disputes  between  members  first 
to  be  referred  to  the  guild,  so  it  may  well  be 
under    the    revived    system;      leaving    the    State 
judges  to  deal  only  with  appeals  by  the  losing 
party   who   will   not   accept   the   decision   of  his 
fellow-members;     and  cases  of  crime,   and  civil 
actions  between  litigants  who  are  not  members 
of  the  same  guild.      But  these,  once  more,  are 
matters  of  expediency,  and  they  may  reasonably 
be  decided  in  several  different  ways.      In  brief, 
so   far  as   it   can   be   generalized,   there  will  be 
departments  and  officials  representing  the  central 
State,  to  settle  many  of  those  common  concerns 
of  the  citizens   which   are   settled   by   the  State 
to-day.      But  it   must   not   be   forgotten   that  it 
will  be  the  continual  tendency  of  a  well-educated 
society   to   withdraw   power   from   the   hands   of 
the    State,    rather    than    to    add    thereto.      The 
Fabian  and  bureaucratic  theory  that  civilization 


THE  STATE 


117 


means  an  increasing  functioning  by  the  State, 
is,  of  course,  a  comparatively  old-fashioned 
opinion.  The  more  civilized  a  man  is,  the 
less  he  requires  instruction  from  policemen  and 
government  clerks .  The  whole  Guild  theory  rests 
on  the  theory  that  man  should  be  his  own 
governor — for  the  common-sense  reason  that  the 
professional  governors  are  rarely  any  good  at 
their  job,  and  because  man  when  too  much 
governed  becomes  a  worm — and  worms  do  not 
interest  any  one  but  scientists. 

There  is  one  all-important  function  of  the 
central  State  which  directly  concerns  the  guilds. 
The  creator  of  the  greater  mediaeval  guilds,  in 
the  legal  sense,  was  the  Crown,  who  granted 
the  charter  under  which  the  guildsmen  claimed 
their  power.  It  seems  probable  that  the  modem 
guilds  will  be  created  in  a  very  similar  manner. 
One  imagines  that  the  grant  of  a  charter  will 
work  out  in  some  such  manner  as  follows.  A 
group  of  traders  or  producers  will  voluntarily 
link  themselves  together  and  ask  the  State  to 
recognize  them  as  a  guild.  It  may  be  that  they 
are  discontented  with  the  guild  in  which  they 
have  hitherto  worked;  or  perhaps  the  old  guild 
has  grown  too  large  in  membership  or  area, 
and'  requires  rearrangement  into  smaller  units ; 
or  there  may  bfe  a  new  trade  or  process  involved. 
Probably  the  petition  for  the  charter  will  first 
be  referred  to  the  existing  guild  organizations, 
as  represented  either  by  the  units  in  the 
neighbourhood  concerned,  or  by  the  larger  guild 


118 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


assemblies    which,    as    suggested    in    an    earlier 
chapter,  are  almost  certain  to  be  formed  in  each 
industry  or  trade  for  common  consultation.     This 
body  would  naturally,  as  competitors,  as  a  general 
rule   put  the   case   against   the  petition;     if  the 
justice  of  it  were  acknowledged  by  its  non-trading 
rivals,   there   would   be   little  more   to   be  said; 
except  the  formal  grantt  of  a  charter  by  the  State. 
But  it  is  more  hkely  that  the  petition,  and  the 
case  against  it  drawn  up  by  the  rival  guilds  of 
the  same  trade,  would  be  referred  to  a  depart- 
ment representing  the  united  community.     This 
might  be  one  appointed  by  the  national  Govern- 
ment, and  it  would  then  be  a  kind  of  Board  of 
Trade.     Or  it  might  be  referred  to  a  committee 
representing  the  united  Congress  of  the  Guilds — 
which  might  be   the  form  ultimately   taken   by 
the   central   State.      The  main   object   would   be 
to    find    some    procedure    that    would    give    the 
community  as  a  whole  the  right  to  decide  whether 
the    proposed   new    guild    should    be    granted    a 
monopoly,  either  absolute  or  partial,  in  the  trade 
of  its  district.     The  exact  way  of  carrying  that 
object  into  practice   might   vary   within   a   large 
range  of  methods. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  granting  of  a 
charter.  The  initiative  may  come  from  a  body 
of  the  consumers,  who  may  petition  the  sanction- 
ing authority  either  to  grant  a  new  charter,  or 
even  to  withdraw  or  revise  one  already  granted. 
For  any  number  of  reasons  they  may  be  dis- 
satisfied with  the  guild  already  supplying  their 


THE  STATE 


119 


neighbourhood.  They  may  think  it  good  that 
there  should  be  more  competition  :  or  a  new 
want  may  have  sprung  up.  A  growing  village 
may  need  a  building  guild  of  its  own,  instead  of 
merely  absorbing  the  spare  time  of  the  builders 
centred  in  the  nearest  town;  and  if  growing 
in  houses,  that  would  suggest  the  need  for  many 
other  new  guilds  to  supply  the  dwellers  therein. 
In  the  need  of  such  a  petition,  from  the  ordinary 
man  in  the  street,  there  is  an  indication  of  the 
necessity  of  providing  some  easy  procedure 
whereby  the  ordinary  man  will  have  a  real  voice 
in  this  vital  question  in  his  everyday  life.  One 
can  imagine  a  fairly  democratic  nation  that  might 
allow  the  condition  of  the  West  Indies  to  be 
settled  by  a  Foreign  or  Colonial  Ofifice  without 
very  much  interference  :  but  a  democracy  that 
could  not  be  the  deciding  factor  in  choosing  its 
butcher  and  builder,  its  baker  and  candlestick - 
maker,  would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Liberty,  like  its  sister  Charity,  begins  at  home. 
It  is  perhaps  in  this  right  to  control  industry 
by  charters  that  we  find  the  most  vital  function 
of  the  State.  It  Will  certainly  be  its  most  delicate 
problem.  If  done  successfully,  it  will  solve  a 
very  large  majority  of  the  difBcuIties  of  public 
affairs;  if  it  fails,  then  we  shall  be  no  better 
off  than  we  are  to-day;  but  it  is  pleasant  to 
remember  that  even  utter  failure  can  scarcely 
make  things  worse  than  they  are  now.  It  will 
be  noted  that  although  the  words  **  control  by 
charter "    are   used,    yet    the    whole   gist    of   the 


120 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


solution  is  to  put  the  real  control  in  the  hands 
of  the  guilds  themselves.  The  guild  charter 
merely  decides  to  whom  that  right  of  control 
shall  be  granted.  Yet  even  when  granted,  it 
will  be  on  stated  terms  :  it  will  be  a  contract 
between  the  guildsmen  and  the  State ;  which  will 
be  revisable  if  those  terms  are  infringed. 

In  some  cases,  but  probably  not  many,  there 
will  be  granted  an  absolute  monopoly;     that  is, 
the  guild  will  be  the  only  body  entitled  to  con- 
duct   the    specified    trade    within    the    specified 
district.     Generally  speaking,  there  will  probably 
be    more    than    one    charter    in    action    at    the 
same    place    and    time.      In    other    words,    there 
will  be  competition.     Whether  there  shall  be  this 
competition  will  largely  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  area,  who  will  have,  as  already 
observed,  the  right  to  petition  for  a  new  guild  ; 
and    representation   at    the    local   public    inquiry 
which    would    be    held    before    a    charter    was 
granted.     This  inquiry  would,  or  should  be,  per- 
haps, the  most  important  function  in  the  life  of  a 
citizen.      If  the  rights  of  democracy  broke  down 
here,  then  they  assuredly  would  fail  throughout 
the   social  structure.      Anyhow,   the   wit  of  man 
can  scarcely  hope  to  suggest  a  procedure  more 
democratic   than   a    local   court,    open    to    all  as 
hearers   and   as    witnesses.      If   democracy   fails 
here,    then    failure    is    inevitable    and    it    must 
accept  its  defeat.     It  will  not  be  its  first  defeat, 
alas  ! 

The  terms  of  the  charter  will  probably  include 


THE   STATE 


121 


a  time  limit,  or  power  of  revision  after  a  trial 
of  the  capacity  of  the  guild  to  do  its  work. 
There  will  also  be  a  defined  geographical  area 
in  which  the  guild  may  operate.  Further,  of  course 
there  will  be  defined  its  industrial  area;  that  is, 
the  charter  will  only  give  permission  to  conduct 
a  specified  trade;  just  as  a  company's  articles 
of  association  carefully  define  its  trading  scope 
to-day.  The  general  standards  of  life  laid  down  in 
the  national  legislation  will  naturally  be  assumed 
in  the  charter;  but  more  precise  conditions  may 
be  included  to  meet  the  special  conditions  of  any 
trade.  For  example,  the  State  may  decide  to 
impose  special  precautions  in  the  case  of  coal- 
mines; though  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that 
the  miners  themselves  will  sanction  internal 
regulations  which  endanger  their  lives.  Indeed, 
when  we  remember  that  the  complete  guilds  will 
be  both  independent  and  democratic,  we  will 
realize  that  a  vast  mass  of  central  legislation 
will  naturally  become  obsolete.  The  guildsmen 
will  be  their  own  protectors. 

The  financial  clauses  will  be  most  important 
terms  of  the  charter.  It  seems  possible  that 
a  main  element  of  national  taxation  may  be 
the  **  rent  *'  that  the  State  will  charge  to  the 
guild  in  return  for  its  charter.  In  the  case  of 
a  coal-mine  there  w^ill  be  rent,  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  for  the  use  of  the  mine  itself,  which  of 
course  under  any  modern  system  would  be  the 
property  of  the  State.  That  principle  has  already 
practically   been  accepted  by   a  majority  of  the 


122 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


THE  STATE 


123 


nation.  The  same  ordinary  rent  clause  would 
apply  to  agricultural  guilds;  for  land  un- 
doubtedly is  already  on  the  verge  of  becoming 
public  property.  This  does  not  rule  out  the 
possibility  of  leasing  it  out  to  peasant  proprietors 
with  hereditary  rights  for  their  descendants. 
These  peasants  could  then  form  guilds  if  they 
chose.  For  again,  one  must  insist  that  there 
will  not  necessarily  be  more  rigidity  or  fixed 
formaHty  in  a  Guild  State  than  there  was  under 
the  older  guild  economy  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Whether  guild  or  no  guild  even  will  be  a  matter 
of  expediency  in  each  case.  So  in  the  case  of 
most  guilds  there  would  be  rent  payable  for 
some  premises  or  land  involved  in  their  work. 
It  may  be  a  factory  building  or  a  brickyard,  or 
a  golf  guild  might  desire  to  rent  links. 

But    in    a     broader    sense,     **  rent  '*     would 
probably  be  payable  under  the  charter  :    that  is, 
the  guild  would  be  asked  to  pay  a  tax  in  return 
for  its  right  to  the  partial  or  absolute  monopoly 
of  trade.     This  tax  might  be  annual  and  heavy 
enough  to  represent  its  income-tax.     Or  it  might 
be  a  simple  fixed  charge,  a  revenue  stamp,  as  it 
were,    on   the   charter;     sufficient   to    discourage 
any  frivolous,  applications  from  a  body  which  did 
not   mean   serious   business.      It   might   even   be 
held  good  to  put  the  charter  up  to  public  compe- 
tition, to  be  granted  to  the  guild  (otherwise  held 
satisfactory)    which  would   pay   the   largest   sum 
for  the  privilege.      This   might   be  just   one  of 
those   ways  of   encouraging   a  healthy   competi- 


\ 


tion,    in   distinction    from    the    sheer    anarchical 
scramble  of  to-day. 

Then  again,  the  charter*  might  lay  down  con- 
ditions concerning  the  prices  to  be  charged  to 
the  consuming  public.  For  example,  a  fixed 
price  might  be  specified  for  the  coal  produced 
by  a  mining  guild.  In  that  case  it  probably 
would  be  so  fixed,  for  it  is  fairly  easy  to 
standardize  it.  But  in  the  case  of  a  bootmakers' 
guild,  the  price  would  not  be  so  easily  deter- 
mined, for  it  would  vary  with  size  and  quality, 
so  much  more  than  coal;  therefore  the  price 
of  boots  might  be  more  conveniently  left  to  the 
healthy  competition  of  rival  guilds  and  the  public 
demand.  In  the  case  of  an  excessive  price, 
there  would  soon  be  petitions  from  new  guilds- 
men  or  complaining  buyers.  Nevertheless,  it 
might  be  possible  for  the  State  to  learn  from  the 
experience  of  all  its  guilds  what  was  the  standard 
cost  of  production.  With  this  evidence  at  its 
disposal,  we  might  go  back  to  that  highest 
moment  in  the  history  of  industrial  ethics ;  when, 
as  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  there  was  a 
"  fair  price  ";  which  was  the  cost  of  production 
plus  a  fair  return  for  the  producer's  labours. 
The  cost  of  production  was  the  foundation  of  the 
standard ;  and  it  is  the  only  honest  and  rational 
standard  that  can   be   applied. 

So  far  it  has  been  assumed  that  this  institution 
called  the  State,  which  is  to  have  the  power  to 
grant  or  to  refuse  a  charter  of  incorporation  to 
a  guild,   is   that   rather  pompous,   old-fashioned 


124 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


thing  as  we  know  it  to-day.  It  would  be  truer 
to  say — as  we  do  not  know  it  to-day,  for  the 
clearest  fact  about  the  State  is  that  it  is  not 
clear  at  all,  but  very  mysterious.  If  it  were 
not  mysterious,  if  we  knew  it  as  it  is,  our 
governors,  who  are  our  State  in  real  life,  could 
not  exist  beyond  a  matter  of  hours.  The  only 
hope  for  a  modern  poHtical  statesman  is  that 
he  should  remain  unknown  by  his  subjects.  For 
this  reason,  its  impalpable  mysteriousness,  the 
modem  State  is  suspected  by  honest  men,  who 
trust  hght  more  than  darkness.  The  rebellion 
against  the  centralized  State  has  begun;  and 
it  would  be  ridiculous  to  assume  finally — as  has 
been  done  in  this  chapter  hitherto — that  the  State 
of  the  future  will  continue  to  bear  the,  same  form 
as  in  the  past. 

Already  there  is  much  talk  of  a  federated 
United  Kingdom  instead  of  a  single  body  repre- 
sented by  one  parliament.  Quite  apart  from 
the  question  of  Irish  Home  Rule,  there  is  a 
suggestion  that  Scotland  and  Wales  should  also 
have  separate  parHaments  dealing  with  their  own 
aflfairs.  A  Scotch  Home  Rule  Bill  has  already 
been  introduced  in  the  Commons.  Some  would 
go  still  further  and  ask  what  Lancashire  and 
Sussex  have  in  common  that  they  should  be 
asked  to  interfere  in  each  other's  business  by 
sharing  the  same  assembly  at  Westminster.  Why 
should  the  desires  of  industrial  Lancashire  be 
judged^  by  the  fishermen  and  farmers  and 
lodging-house   ladies   of   Sussex?     There    was    a 


THE  STATE 


125 


time  when  England  was  divided  into  at  least 
seven  substantial  kingdoms;  and  still  earlier, 
our  present  southern  counties  represented  more 
•  or  less  distinct  units  of  govemm^t.  As  most 
old  things  are  better  than  anything  new,  it 
appears  every  day  more  probable  that  a  reaction 
against  over-centralization  will  make  us  retrace 
our  steps  in  national  history.  By  the  time  the 
guilds  have  arrived  and  they  have  to  contest 
their  power  with  the  State,  they  will  find  a 
very    different    institution    than    the   one    we    see 

to-day. 

Thus,  if  federation  follows,  the  guilds  of  Wales 
may  not  be  compelled  to  come  to  .Westminster 
to  procure  their  charters.  Indeed,  Wales  is  a 
very  good  case  for  the  new  federation.  It  is 
really  a  distinctive  unit,  both  racially  and 
economically.  We  have  no  right  to  discuss 
subjects  like  the  Welsh  Church,  in  the  sense 
of  overriding  the  decision  of  the  Welsh  people. 
And  certainly  Wales  interferes  far*  too  much  with 
us.  But  it  is  in  no  spirit,  of  revenge  that  iwe 
offer  Mr.  Lloyd  George  to  his  countrymen  for 
internal  consumption.  If  Wales,  as  well  as 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  were  separate  political 
units,  then  it  would  no  longer  be  a  Board  of 
Trade  in  Whitehall  which  would  be  the  creator 
of  guilds;  but  a  more  local  Board  either  at 
Dublin,  or  Edinburgh,  or  the  Welsh  capital.  As 
there  would  be,  probably,  still  a  United  Kingdom 
ParUament,  the  question  arises  whether  there 
would  be  any  appeal  to  the  central  Board  against 


126 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


THE   STATE 


127 


f 


the  decision  of  the  local  body.  The  chances 
are  that  it  would  be  held  unnecessary.  What 
more  of  the  case  could  be  known  at  the  centre 
than  was  known  on  the  spot?  It  is  a  delusion 
that  a  better  judgment  is  obtained  as  one  goes 
higher  and  further  away.  It  is  one  of  those 
remarkably  insolent  fictions  invented  by  bureau- 
crats :  and  it  is  one  of  their  most  palpable  un- 
truths. So  there  will  probably  be  no  ordinary 
procedure  contracted  whereby  the  decision  of  a 
local  Board  can  be  overridden  by  a  centralized 
one;  short,  of  course,  of  some  extraordinary 
resolution  by  the  United  Parliament  asking  the 
case  to  be  transferred  on  appeal. 

But  there  is   still  another  alternative   to   con- 
sider in  this  all-important  procedure  of  granting 
charter  monopolies  to  the  guilds.     It  is  possible 
that  in  the  first  instance,  at  least,  the  sanctioning 
authority    may    be    a    more    or    less    local   body 
representing    the    present    municipal    or    county 
councils.       Perhaps    the    municipal    council    will 
again  be,  .as  it  was  often  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
practically  the  united  guilds;     if  so,  they  would 
be    a    convenient    body    to    which    the    granting 
of  the   charters    could    be    referred,    at    least   in 
the    first    instance.       If    the    council    and    the 
burgesses    could    not    between    them    judge    the 
facts  on  their  merits,   then   the   case   would  in- 
deed be  a  difficult  one,   and  more   suitable  for 
pulling    straws    than    further    argument.       The 
county  council  might  do  the  same  work  in  all 
cases  lying  outside  the  greater  municipal  areas. 


where    the    problems    are    naturally    somewhat 
different. 

In  short,  it  is  necessary  to  think  of  the  State 
as   something  very  different,  in  form,   from  the 
centraHzed  machine  it  is  to-day.     Without  insist- 
ing on  any  desire  or  necessity  to  go  back,  yet 
there  is  little  doubt  that  under  the  Guild  system 
the  State  will  be  much  nearer  what  it  was  when 
the  guilds  were  so  supreme  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
There  are  some  people,  of  course,  who  will  object 
to  •*  going  back  "  on  principle.     Some  people's 
principles  are  so  rigid  that  they  would  rather  do 
the  wrong  thing  with  them  than  do  right  with- 
out them'.     It  is  surely  a  matter  of  fact  in  this 
case.     If  the  mediaeval  system  gave  better  results 
then,  and  would  give  equally  good  results  now, 
then,   indeed,   why   not    follow   that    fact    to   its 
logical    conclusion.      A    moment's    consideration 
will    surely   convince   most   people    that    a    con- 
tinuation of  going  forward  in  our  present  direction 
is  a  far  mOre  terrible  vision  than  going  back,  or 
sideways,    or   in    any    new    dimension    of    space 
whatever.      The    mediaevalists    are    often    called 
dreamers,  still  more  unkindly  critics  use  the  word 
sentimentalists.     There  are  some  of  us  who  will 
continue  to  prefer  the  quiet  of  dreams  and  senti- 
ments, to  the  reckless  gamble  of  going  forward 
as  our  critics  are  themselves  going  to-day.   There 
is    some    advantage    in    being    a    dreamer    if  it 
makes   us  see   the  facts.      What   is   the   matter 
with   so   many   hard-headed   business   men    and 
politicians   is  that   they   cannot   recognize   them  : 


128 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


their   heads   are    so   hard    they    cannot    feel   the 
impact. 

The  mediaeval  State  paid  great  respect  to  the 
city;     and  it  is  probable  that  under  a  decentral- 
ized  system,   it   will   again   take   an   honourable 
place.     Winchester  may  again  become  the  capital 
city   of  a   minor  governing   unit   that   has  many 
independent   powers  of   its   own,   without   being 
compelled  to  refer  to  the  main  State  on  a  hundred 
points  of  law  and  administration  where  reference 
cannot    be    a    help,    but    rather    a    hindrance. 
Winchester   and   its    county    will    not    claim    this 
independence  from  any  stubborn  conviction  that 
it  ought  to  be  independent;     and  it  will  not  be 
granted  its  freedom  from  centralization  because 
of  some  vague  instinct  for  liberty— though  there 
are   few   instincts    that    are    sounder.      Its    inde- 
pendence will  exist  just  because,  as  a  matter  of 
practice,  it  will  be  agreed  that  local  independence 
works    more    satisfactorily    than    central    bureau- 
cracy.    Affairs  will  not  be  brought   to  London, 
for  the  very  good  reason  tha^t  they  can  be  better 
completed  at  Winchester.     It  is  only  the  present- 
day  politicians   who   are   sentimental   and   theo- 
retical on  such  matters;     the  guildsmen  refuse 
to    be    swayed    by    anything    except    very    solid 
arguments. 

To  take  another  example,  such  a  county 
as  Lancashire  would  have  admirable  excuses 
for  claiming  to  exist  as  a  minor  and  semi-inde- 
pendent administration,  without  the  necessity  of 
continually  stopping  its  work  in  order  to  explain 


THE  STATE 


129 


to  Whitehall  what  Whitehall  ought  to  allow  the 
people  of  Lancashire  to  do.  That  complicated 
process  is  so  remarkably  like  the  tedious 
ceremony  by  which  Louis  the  Fourteenth  was 
hindered  from  putting  on  his  clothes  in  the 
morning  in  order  that  a  few  dozen  courtiers  might 
hold  honourable  post  about  his  person.  He 
might  have  been  handed  his  shirt  by  the  first 
noble  lord  :  but  it  had  to  go  through  many 
departments  of  the  Court  before  it  reached  its 
owner's  back.  And  that  is  exactly  what  happens 
with  a  bureaucracy  and  a  centralized  State.  Its 
object  is  not  to  get  its  work  done  quickly,  but 
to  supply  many  jeople  with  offices. 

But  all  these  theoretical  divisions  of  the  country 
into   smaller  units   must    be   considered  entirely 
as    a    matter    of    practical    convenience,    not    as 
a    rigid    principle.      The    principle    merely    lays 
down  the   rather   obvious   rule   that   one   should 
never    carry    a    problem    to    a    geographical    or 
intellectual  Whitehall  if  it  can  be  settled  without 
the   trouble  of   carrying  it    anywhere.      That   is 
scarcely  a  principle;     it  is  only  common  sense. 
But  the  application  of  this  principle  is  a  matter 
which   can  only   be   decided   in   each   case  as   it 
arises,  and  on  its  own  merits.      Lancashire  may 
be    a    sound    unit,    whereas    Westmorland    and 
Durham  may  be  very  bad  ones.     One  can  easily 
conceive  that  the  agricultural  interests  of  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk  and  Lincolnshire  and  Essex  might 
make  them  well   rid   of   the   suburban   voters  of 
the    London   district.      But    all    these    problems 

9 


130 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


must  be  left  to  gradual  enlightenment ;  and  only 
after  the  Guild  system  has  sorted  out  the  nation 
into  its  fundamental  parts.  That  is  the  chief 
point  to  bear  in  mind;  the  guilds  are  the  real 
dividing  line;  all  other  sub-divisions  or 
centralizations  are  only  questions  of  practical 
expediency. 

But  however  far  the  decentralization  may  be 
carried,  there  will  always  be  something  left  over 
that  will  be  better  settled  by  the  united  State— for 
the  good  reason  that  it  concerns  the  whole  rather 
than  the  part.  There  will  be  broad  questions 
of  poHcy — very  little  of  administration  perhaps— 
which  can  only  be  settled  by  national  collabora- 
tion; just  as  there  will  be  still  broader  questions 
which  will  need  international  decision.  So  that, 
sooner  or  later,  it  will  be  necessary  to  face  the 
problem  of  the  structure  of  the  central  organ 
of  government.  That  it  should  stand  just  as  it 
is  to-day  is  obviously  impossible.  The  parlia- 
mentary system  has  become  a  byword  of  con- 
tempt, and  a  model  of  inefficiency.  Nobody 
imagines  that  the  seven  hundred  odd  men  in 
the  House  of  Commons  are  the  most  patriotic, 
the  most  unselfish,  the  most  honest,  and  the 
best  men  for  their  work.  Of  course  they  have 
got  an  impossible  job,  which  would  be  mis- 
managed by  archangels,  but  it  would  be  hard  to 
find  a  worse  selection.  A  system  that  could 
choose  such  a  weird  jumble  of  members  is  self- 
condemned  without  much  argument. 

It  seems  clear,  as  we  have  already  discussed, 


THE  STATE 


131 


that  the  first  element  of  a  sound  representative 
system  is  that  the  electors  should  have  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  opinions  and  character  of  their 
candidates  ;  and  that  they  should  also  have  some 
real  knowledge  of  the  subjects  on  which  a 
decision  is  asked.  Without  these  two  elements, 
the  elections  must  be  a  matter  of  sporting 
chances,  which  might  as  well  be  settled  more 
cheaply  with  the  dice-box.  It  has  been  suggested 
in  this  essay  that  the  personal  qualifications  of 
a  candidate  can  scarcely  be  gained  elsewhere  than 
as  a  fellow-worker  in  the  intimate  practice  of 
the  same  daily  work;  which  would  also  fulfil 
the  second  condition  of  knowledge  of  the  subject, 
so  long  as  it  was  only  the  problems  of  that  trade. 
But  how  are  we  to  choose  a  man  who  will  decide, 
say,  our  relations  with  the  Hottentots,  when  we 
have  only  the  most  remote  idea  what  these  people 
want  or  what  they  ought  to  have? 

It  would  appear  that  we  must  give  up  in 
despair  any  ideal  solution  of  this  problem  of 
finding  the  right  parliamentary  representatives. 
There  will  always  be  a  large  margin  of  chance. 
Politics  will  always  tempt  the  adventurer, 
especially  the  man  or  woman  who  would  other- 
wise find  it  difficult  to  make  a  living.  The  orator 
and  the  wire-puller  will  always  have  the  best 
chance  of  beating  the  thinker  and  the  honest 
man  at  the  polls.  As  it  will  be  always  impossible 
for  the  electors  to  have  an  expert  knowledge  of 
every  subject  that  arises  during  an  election,  that 
factor  of  the  problem  must  often  take  its  chance. 


132 


THE   GUILD   STATE 


It  remains,  therefore,  to  cling  to  the  first  prin- 
ciple  that  at   least   the  electors  may  know  their 

candidates. 

If  a  man  is  chosen  for  his  honesty  and  shrewd 
common  sense,  he  will  be  found  fairly  adequate  to 
give  the  reasonable  and  honest  vote  on  most 
occasions.  No  system  will  be  fool-proof  or 
knave-proof.  If  knowledge  of  our  candidates 
is  thus  our  main  hope,  perhaps  it  may  be  found 
necessary  to  sweep  away  the  area-representa- 
tion altogether,  and  elect  the  members  of  the 
central  parliament  on  the  basis  of  the  guilds. 
Each  guild  would  return  its  member  or  share 
him  with  its  neighbouring  guilds.  But  as  the 
number  of  guilds  would  make  the  assembly  too 
large  for  practical  purposes,  it  is  possible  that 
the  united  delegates  of  a  whole  industry  might 
make  the  election.  Though  here  again,  the  know- 
ledge of  the  candidate  would  be  rather  slight. 
Or  an  alternative  system  would  be  for  quite  small 
areas,  say  a  parish,  to  choose  primary  electors 
who  would  then  group  together  in,  say,  county 
areas  and  choose  the  members.  There  are 
obvious  defects;  but,  as  already  admitted,  all 
systems  seem  to  be  weak  somewhere.  The 
whole  idea  of  representation  is  a  mere  concession 
to  the  unfortunate  fact  that  we  cannot  be  in  a 
dozen  places  at  one  time. 

It  may  therefore  be  that  we  shall  have  to 
choose  the  best  of  the  defective  ways  of  central 
election  ;  and  comfort  ourselves  with  the  thought 
that  in  the  Guild  State  we  shall  have  removed 


THE   STATE 


133 


as  many  subjects  as  possible  from  the  power  of 
the  central  machine.  And  by  hitting  at  the 
Party  system  as  hard  as  possible  we  shall  do 
much  to  make  what  remains  of  centralization  as 
little  dangerous  as  must  be.  Besides,  no  govern- 
ment will  be  wiser  or  honester  than  its  electors. 
There  is  no  perfect  solution  of  the  representative 
system  except  by  first  finding  an  educated 
electorate.  The  wiser  the  voter,  the  less  often  will 
he  choose  a  fool  or  a  rogue  :  and  until  he  is 
wise  there  is  little  use  our  crying  for  the  moon. 
For  we  will  not  get  it. 


1 


CHAPTER   VI i 

A   GUILDSMAN^S    PHILOSOPHY    OF    LIFE 

TTAVING  enticed  the  reader  to  bear  with  the 
A  A   foregoing  essay  on  the  guilds,  tempting  him 
by  a  plea  that  the  social  machinery  of  the  State 
is  a  vital  matter  in  human  affairs,  the  time  has 
now  come  for  a  confession.     These  questions  of 
social  machinery,  these  details  of  economic  and 
poHtical  constitutions,  have  been  altogether  over- 
rated.    There  are  intellectual  freaks  who  some- 
times    emerge     from    our     educational     system 
(usually  from  the  honours  schools  at  the  univer- 
sities), who  imagine  that  man  will  save  his  soul 
by  the  infinite  collecting  and  studying  of  political 
constitutions.      They  tabulate  them  and  arrange 
them  in  their  libraries,  as  wiser  men  collect  and 
pin    butterflies.      They    would    seem    to    believe 
that   the  fate   of   man'  hangs   on    the   thread  of 
whether  he  be  a  proportional-representation  man 
or  a  mere  voter  after  the  old-fashioned  Victorian 
manner.      They  get  passionate  in  defending  the 
federal   State   against    the    confederates.      They 
imagine,    in    short,    that    man    clings    to    social 
salvation  by  the  hair  of  a  political  constitution. 
There  are  political  dreamers  and  economic  pro- 
fessors who  collect  constitutions  and  regulations 
with     the     simple     enthusiasm     of     schoolboys 
collecting    postage    stamps— and,     for    all     the 
results  one  can  discover,  with  the  equal  satisfac- 
tion of  a  harmless  and  innocent  curiosity.     For 

134 


( 


GUILDSMAN^S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     135 

whether  man  has  one  civic  constitution  or 
another  seems  ultimately  of  as  little  importance  as 
when  Brazil  changes  the  colour  of  its  postage 
stamps. 

The  chief  fault  of  the  learned  is  that  they 
have  no  sense  of  proportion;  which  is  a  high 
philosophic  quality  usually  reserved  for  the 
simple.  Education  is  too  often  an  overbalancing 
of  the  values  of  life;  the  scholar  so  persistently 
sees  one  thing  at  a  time — ^usually  the  wrong  one. 
It  is  therefore  urgent  that  we  should  get  the 
social  machinery  of  the  Gtiild  State  in  its  proper 
proportion  against  the  background  of  life  as  a 
whole.  It  is  not  the  centre  of  the  picture,  but 
merely  one  part  of  it,  however  essential.  Until 
we  know  what  we  want  Hfe  to  be,  we  shall  never 
be  quite  sure  whether  we  ought  to  have  the 
guilds,  or  how  we  should  use  them  when  we  get 
them.  They  are  not  an  end  in  themselves,  but 
merely  a  means.  Reformers  so  continually  harp 
on  the  machinery  and  forget  the  men  for  whose 
use  it  was  made.  Man  is  the  centre  of  human 
society,  and  the  machinery  is  only  good  if  it 
suits  his  ultimate   purposes   in  life. 

What  the  guildsman  must  grasp  is  that  these 
proposals  go  no  further  than  the  mere  mechanism 
of  social  anatomy;  and  without  some  under- 
standing of  what  he  finally  intends  to  do,  he 
may  easily  grasp  the  form  of  the  guilds  and 
find  that  the  spirit  has  escaped.  One  can 
imagine  a  community  led  by  university  professors 
and    constitution    collectors    building    themselves 


;'J 


I 


136 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


t 

i 


a  Guild  State — as  architects  might  build  an  imita- 
tion Greek  temple  or  a  sham  Gothic  church— 
and  then  wondering  why  everything  remained 
much  as  it  was  before.  Or  worse  still,  not 
reaHzing  they  had  never  really  desired  anything 
new,  except  some  new  machinery  to  fit  the  latest 
pattern   in    their   constitution    album. 

The  guildsman,  if  he  is  anything  more  than 
another     sort     of     poHtical     adventurer,     wants 
many  things  much  more  fundamental  than  new 
machinery.     He  wants  new  results.     But  unfor- 
tunately this  is  not  always  his  aim.     There  are 
some  who  do  not  object  to  the  present  poHtical 
and    mdustrial    system    because    it    is    radically 
wrong,    from   its    very    roots    to    its    most   rotten 
fruit;     they  think  it   is   merely   badly  managed. 
Their  intellectual  and  artistic  outlook  is  almost 
precisely    that    of    the    sympathetic    countess    in 
Balzac  who  on  seeing  a  poorly  clad  peasant  boy 
exclaims:      ♦*  Tu    n'as     done    pas     de    m^rel" 
She  thought  that  if  he  only  had  a  mother  all 
would    be   well.      She    was    like    the    man    who 
imagines   that    the    present    system    will    be    all 
right  when  incomes  are  more  equally  distributed. 
He  does  not,  for  example,  desire  to  abolish  the 
centralized  factories  ;  he  merely  wants  them  made 
clean  and  bright.     He  does  not  want  to  change 
the   present   social    system,    but   only   to    tidy  it. 
He    wants    Lancashire    to    continue    to    produce 
cotton  goods  by  the  ten  million  yards,  and  Durham 
to  dig  coal  by  the  million  tons;    and  he  will  be 
delighted  if  Kent  can  be  induced  to  follow  their 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE    137 

example.  There  are  two  classes  of  social 
reformers  :  those  who  are  seeking  a  radical 
change,  and  those  who  belong  to  the  same  school 
as  the  young  woman  in  the  apron  who  flicks 
the  dust  off  one  chair  in  order  that  it  may  quietly 
settle  down  on  another.  Both  schools  may  be 
entirely  sincere;  indeed,  the  most  sincere  are 
usually  the  dullest.  But  they  have  different 
philosophies  of  life;  and  until  we  know  which 
is  the  right  one,  it  is  useless  to  start  off  aim- 
lessly in  any  direction  whatever.  Social  reform 
is  not  a  game  of  blindman*s-buff. 

The  Mediaeval  system  had  one  conception  of 
life,  and  the  Modern  system  has  another.  We 
have  the  factory  system  now  because  a  certain 
powerful  group  of  men  want  something  which 
is  entirely  different  from  the  ideal  of  the  average 
mediaeval  man.  The  two  conceptions  can  be 
summed  up  in  a  reasonable  space;  there  is 
the  ideal  Modern  Man,  and  the  ideal  man  as  the 
mediaevalists  conceived  him.  One  hopes  to  show 
that  the  former  is  a  figment  of  diseased  minds; 
and  that  the  latter  is  the  normal  man,  as  he  exists 
in  a  rational  world.  The  antagonism  between 
the  two  ideas  may  be  put  in  various  ways  :  for 
the  moment  it  is  important  to  make  clear  what 
precisely  is  the  root  difference  which  separates 
the  Guild  school  of  reform  from  the  Modern 
State  school. 

What,  then,  do  the  champions  of  this  Modern 
State  conceive  to  be  the  chief  end  of  man? 
What  is  their  ideal  of  life?   The  answer  can  only 


138 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


be  gathered  from  the  chaotic  mass  of  evidence 
by  which  the  system  reveals  itself.  We  can 
most  easily  judge  of  the  modern  man's  ideals  by 
the  system  he  supports  and  strives  to  continue. 
It  is  a  little  difficult  to  know  where  to  begin;  for 
the  main  note  of  modern  life  is  a  rushing,  roaring 
tumult  of  noise  and  rapid  motion.  To  describe 
it  from  the  life  would  be  somewhat  like  trying 
to  write  a  book  of  philosophy  when  seated  in 
the  din  of  a  shipbuilding  yard.  The  modem 
man  seems  to  find  some  peculiar  virtue  in  noise 
and  movement.  They  appear  to  represent  to 
his  mind  great  natural  forces  which  he  associates 
with  work  and  success.  He  is  convinced  that 
a  great  deal  is  happening  in  the  world  if  there 
is  a  great  noise.  He  is  sure  that  progress  is 
being  made  if  somebody  is  going  somewhere  at 
a  very  rapid  pace.  He  is  convinced  that  there 
is  more  real  energy  in  the  world  now  that  there 
are  railway  trains  and  trams  and  bicycles,  instead 
of  the  old  system  of  walking  or  riding  in  a  cart. 
When  the  motor-car  was  invented,  the  modern 
man  felt  that  the  gods  were  kind  indeed  :  for 
now  he  could  travel  all  over  the  country  at  the 
same  speed  at  which  only  the  fixed  railways  could 
carry  Tiim  before.  He  could  cover  a  hundred 
miles  of  road,  whereas  before  he  could  only  do 
ten.  He  did  not  stop  to  ask  himself  whether 
he  only  saw  one-tenth  of  the  scenery.  Having 
the  quantitative  mind,  he  was  only  concerned 
with  total  mileage. 

The  invention  of  the  aeroplane  was  as  strong 


aUlLDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE    13d 

wine  to  this  enthusiast.  All  his  newspaper 
writers  put  it  into  headlines  and  called  it  the 
**  Conquest  of  the  Air  "  in  their  biggest  type. 
When  London  was  being  bombed  every  other 
night,  there  was  a  certain  hesitation  as  to  what 
was  being  conquered;  but  this  balance  was 
quickly  restored  when  we  had  the  best  of  this 
new  game  for  modem  men.  That  we  should 
have  a  whole  new  element  of  space  added  to  our 
possibilities  for  rapid  travel,  seemed  too  good 
to  be  true.  It  was  apparently  an  inspiration  to 
know  that  one  could  see  so  much  more  of  the  earth 
by  flying  over  it  so  quickly — that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  see  anything  at  all.  It  seems  the  crown 
of  madness.  It  is  pace  for  pace's  sake.  Of 
course  there  may  be  many  reasons  why  it  is 
better  to  get  to  Granada  or  Cairo  rather  than 
stop  in  London,  and  it  may  be  good,  therefore,  to 
get  there  as  soon  as  possible.  But  now  we 
find  this  man  of  rapid  passions  developing  a 
desire  to  fly  to  New  York.  But  would  any  sane 
man  want  to  go  to  such  a  place?  Yes,  the 
modern  man  wants  to  go  there,  for  it  sums  up 
most  of  which  he  considered  good  in  life.  He 
may  want  a  week  or  two  at  the  seaside  or  in 
the  country  in  the  summer;  but,  for  the  rest, 
give  him  New  York  every  time,  he  will  tell 
you.  It  seems  a  shame  to  put  this  ignominy 
so  prominently  on  New  York — ^but  a  hundred 
great  cities  would  please  him  almost  as  well. 
So  long  as  he  can  get  speed,  and  noise,  and 
dust,    and  as    little    fresh    air.  as    possible,    the 


!     ■:! 


!><■ 


140 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


■  I 
It  1 


modern  man  will   be   content.      He  will   be  in 
his   Paradise. 

But,  by  the  very  nature  of  his  creed,  no  sooner 
has  he  arrived  in  one  Paradise  than  it  is  time 
to  conquer  another.  Like  Alexander,  he  does 
not  rejoice  for  what  he  has  won;  but  weeps 
because  there  is  nothing  beyond.  He  wants  to 
conquer  and  to  rule  everybody  and  everything  : 
and,  above  all  else,  he  must  be  quick.  His 
trusted  philosopher  is  the  newspaper  leader 
writer,  that  feverish  mind  that  is  lured  to  its 
folly  by  the  latest  evening  telegram.  Now  the 
real  news  of  the  world  cannot  be  discovered  in 
a  telegram;  and  wisdom  can  rarely  be  gleaned 
from  it  in  time  for  the  newspaper  train.  Wisdom 
is  not  the  fancy  of  to-day  or  the  fashion  of 
to-morrow.  But  the  modern  man  does  not  ask 
for  wisdom ;  he  wants  opinion  poured  down 
his  throat  as  quickly  and  as  noisily  as  possible. 
So  the  daily  newspaper  has  become  the  very 
expression  of  the  intellect  of  this  extraordinary 
by-product   of   humanity. 

This  desire  for  speed  is  but  the  expression 
of  the  modern  man's  determination  to  value 
everything  in  terms  of  quantity  instead  of  quality. 
If  he  can  have  two  of  anything,  he  feels  himself 
infinitely  better  than  if  he  only  has  one.  He  is 
unfortunately  limited  by  one  mouth,  one  stomach, 
by  twenty -four  hours  to  the  day,  and  other 
ridiculous  failings  of  a  Nature  that  is  so  care- 
lessly unambitious.  But  the  modern  man  is  not 
one    to    be    dictated    to    by    mere    Nature.      His 


GUILDSMAN'S   PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE    Ul 

whole    life   is    one    continual    defiance   of    every 
law  of  it.     He  thinks  Chicago  is  so  many  times 
better  than  Canterbury  because  there  are  so  many 
times  more  people  in  it;     and  so  many  multiple 
times    the    possibility    of    making    money    in    it. 
He    thinks    one    nation    is    richer    than    another 
because    its    exports    and    imports    are    bigger. 
He    thinks   the    British    Empire    is    greater    than 
the  land  of  the  Plantagenets  because  its  square 
mileage  has  increased.      He   thinks   a  citizen  of 
the  United  States  must  feel  superior  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Denmark  because  it  is  possible  to  travel 
in   a   railway   train    longer    in    the    States   before 
reaching    the    boundary.      He    thinks    that    Mr. 
Jay  Gould  and  Mr.  Carnegie  are  more  successful 
men  than  George  Meredith  or  Robert   Grosseteste 
because  they  have  larger  banking  accounts.     In 
his    more    genial    moments    he    talks    generously 
of   the   services   of   the   clowns   and   singers   and 
artists  who  amuse  his  moments  of  leisure  :    he 
is  kind  enough  to  murmur  proverbs  concerning 
the  happinesses  and  virtues  of  contentment  and 
poverty — ^but   he  doesn't    really   mean   it;     it   is 
only  a  creed  for  those  who  have  not  wit  enough 
to  make  a  real  success.     In  short,  it  is  a  Philo- 
sophy of  Multiples;    there  is  one  test  for  every- 
thing— ^the    multiplication    table.       That    is    his 
creed.     His  questions  can  only  be  answered  in 
terms   of  quantity,   of   space,   of   velocity.       He 
prefers  the  last  part  of  the  multiplication  table 
to    the   beginning,    for    it    talks    about    bigger 
numbers. 


U2 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


Now,  the  remarkable  fact  is  that  in  the  news- 
paper offices  and   government   departments   and 
business  houses,  where  they  imagine  they  know 
all  the  latest  news,  they  really  believe  that  this 
modern  monstrosity  is  the  normal  man  of  to-day. 
They  conceive  of  man   as   a  heroic  creature  of 
energy  who  is  continually  asserting  himself  ;   ever 
restless  to  take  the  next  step  in  human  progress ; 
always     searching     for     something     new,     and 
imagining  that  the  new  is  better  than  the  old; 
always  desiring  to  rule  his  fellows  and  to  interfere 
with   their   lives   as   much   as   possible — for   that 
is   their  conception  of  a   great   man.      It  is  an 
astounding   blunder   in    judgment.      It    no   more 
corresponds   to  the   facts   of   life   than   when  a 
man  in  a  moment  of  spiritual  emotion  sees  two 
moons.      The    vast    majority    of    the    people    of 
this  world  have  no   resemblance  to   this  human 
motor-bus,  eternally  rushing  along  the  highways, 
smothered    in    the    dust    of    its    own    energy,    a 
thing  of  tumultuous  noise  and  virile  determina- 
tion to  get  to  its  journey's  end  at  all  costs   to 
itself  or  others.      The  leader-writer  is   deceived 
because  he  is  himself  of  this  weird  mechanical 
creation,    and    likewise    his    friends.      But    it    is 
the    same   sort    of   mistake    that    a    duke   would 
make  if  he  imagined  that  all  the  other  people  in 
the   world  were   dukes,   with   the   corresponding 
number  of  duchesses.      It  is   the  same  mistake 
that    the   orthodox    historians    make    when    they 
imagine     that     history     has     been     made     by 
politicians. 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     143 

The  normal  man  has  no  resemblance  what- 
soever to  a  motor-bus.  He  is  sane.  He  is 
exceedingly  stable,  and  if  he  met  his  ancestors 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  even  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
they  would  have  much  in  common  to  discuss. 
There  would  be  all  those  innumerable  simple 
facts  which  make,  up  the  main  life  of  the  normal 
man.  They  would  be  more  concerned  with  their 
daily  occupations  than  with  rushing  along — either 
materially  or  mentally — somewhere  else  or  no- 
where in  particular.  Normal  life  is  rest,  not 
motion;  quiet,  not  tumult;  acceptance  of  what 
arrives  at  one's  door,  rather  than  the  seeking 
of  what  is  not  there.  The  normal  man  lacks 
ambition;  he  is  not  anxious  to  make  a  great 
fortune,  or  to  conquer,  or  to  govern  other  people. 
It  may  be  intellectual  slackness  or  physical 
laziness,  or,  more  probably,  merely  good  taste 
and  decent  manners.  Whatever  may  be  the 
reason,  he  does  not  care  to  interfere  with  his 
neighbours.  He  does  not  want  to  govern  them; 
and  he  dislikes  being  governed  by  them. 

Perhaps  that  is  the  most  fundamental  civic 
quality  of  the  average  human  being;  this 
inability  or  disinclination  to  take  a  very  active 
part  in  the  business  of  governing.  The 
politician  may  be  very  anxious  to  give  the 
common  people  elaborate  political  constitutions 
that  will  confer  on  them  many  votes  and  many 
offices.  But  the  normal  man,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
has  never  got  very  excited  about  his  gifts.  He 
will   neither   take    a    very    great   interest    in   the 


U4 


THE   GUILD  STATE 


politician  nor  his  programmes.  The  poHticians, 
of  course,  have  assumed  that  this  was  entirely 
owing  to  lack  of  education  on  the  part  of  the 
common  man;  and  great  endeavours  have  been 
made  to  arouse  him  to  more  intellectual  activity. 
But  when  one  thinks  over  the  matter  more  care- 
fully, the  suspicion  is  aroused  that  this  placid 
ignoring  of  the  political  orator  and  his  bag  of 
tricks,  may  be  just  one  of  those  things  that 
prove  the  sane  wisdom  of  the  common  man. 
It  may  be  his  thoughtful  judgment — the  clinging 
traditions  of  his  ancestral  memory — that  he  got 
on  fairly  well  in  the  past  without  either  politician 
or  political  programmes,  and  that  all  those  that 
he  has  voted  for  seem,  on  consideration,  to 
have  done  him  no  particular  good,  and  some- 
times a  great  deal  of  harm.  Anyhow,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  the  ordinary  man  as  often  as  not  will 
go  to  the  poll  only  if  he  is  carried  there.  He 
is  not  a  political  animal. 

His  ambition  is  of  very  modest  proportion  ; 
desiring  very  moderate  things,  little  inclined 
to  self-assertion,  peaceful;  aroused  to  action 
only  by  the  most  persistent  encouragement, 
provoked  to  resistance  only  by  the  most 
persistent  .tyranny.  The  freaks  of  humanity  may 
demand  a  grouse  moor  in  Scotland,  a  villa  on 
the  Riviera,  a  box  at  the  Opera,  and  dinner  at 
the  Ritz .  The  normal  man  is  wonderfully  content 
mth  very  much  less.  Being  very  sane,  and 
therefore  unlike  the  modern  man,  he  recognizes 
the    limitations    of    facts.       If    everybody    drank 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE    145 

the  wines  of  Tokay,  they  could  not  last  a  day  ; 
the  moors  of  Scotland  would  soon  be  surging 
with  sportsmen  and  bare  of  grouse;  the  theatres 
would  be  all  boxes,  and  a  box  in  the  galkry 
would  be  a  quibble  about  terms.  In  short,  the 
world  would  only  be  possible  if  the  normal  man 
kept  his  head  and  refused  to  become  an  abnormal 
freak.  It  is  one  of  the  great  traditions  of  man 
to  keep  his  head  and  heart  steady;  for  without 
it  the  earth  would  become  a  reckless  impos- 
sibiHty.  If  all  succeeded,  if  all  won  fame,  then 
both  fame  and  success  would  lose  their  meaning. 
It  would  perhaps  be  possible  to  take  in  each  other's 
washing — but  each  other's  fame  might  become 
exceedingly   boring. 

But  if  the  sane  man  has  small  ambition  for 
greatness,  he  has  a  commendable  desire  to  do 
his  daily  job  with  credit  to  himself.  Man  is  by 
instinct  a  craftsman  who  likes  his  work.  There 
was  no  strong  economic  coercive  pressure  in 
the  Middle  Ages;  yet  the  craftsmen  of  that 
day  built  a  thousand  beautiful  churches,  and 
made  ten  thousand  delightful  wares.  They  were 
things  that  could  only  be  done  in  the  spirit 
of  delight  in  doing  them.  But  it  is  written  in 
the  history  of  the  world  that  man  in  his  natural 
condition  is  not  content  to  get  merely  a  bare 
living  :  he  must  always  be  throwing  into  his 
work  an  infinity  of  turns  and  twirls  just  because 
it  delights  him  to  do  so  ;  while  the  appeal  to  his 
sense  of  honesty  and  efficiency  is  generally  certain 
of  a  due  response.  Man  was  an  artist  by  nature 

10 


146 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


j  GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     14? 


long  before  there  were  academy  schools  or 
technical  colleges  to  teach  him  by  classes.  One 
of  the  pathetic  struggles  of  to-day  is  to  recover, 
by  vast  expenditure  of  public  money  on  education, 
some  of  the  artistic  skill  which  the  apprentice 
of  the  mediaeval  days  could  pick  up  for  the 
asking  in  every  workshop.  The  deep  traditions 
of  the  world  would  seem  to  have  taught  the 
normal  man  what  is  worth  the  doing  and  what 
is  not  worth  it  :  and  we  find  him'  willing,  or 
even  eager,  to  do  his  daily  work  if  it  is  worthy 
of  a  decent  creature.  But  he  is  very  reluctant  to 
trouble  about  all  those  matters  which  come  under 
the  head  of  political  affairs. 

There  are  the  two  types  before  us  in  very  brief 
summary.  The  system  of  life  which  produces  one 
must  inevitably  crush  out  the  other.  We  must 
make  up  our  mind  which  of  the  two  w^  will 
have  ;  for  we  cannot  have  both  :  it  would  be  like 
placing  a  terrier  and  a  rabbit  in  the  same  cage. 
At  least  it  is  certain  that  the  Guild  State  would 
threaten  the  destruction  of  the  modern  man. 
No  one  can  suppose  that  this  leader-writer's 
ideal  could  exist  for  long  in  an  educated  demo- 
cracy; he  would  probably  be  expelled  under 
one  of  the  sanitary  regulations;  or  somebody 
might  lose  his  temper  and  hit  him  with  an  axe. 
But  it  must  be  seriously  asked  whether  this 
modern  man  is  either  ideal,  or  necessary,  or 
even  possible  as  a  permanent  social  institution. 
We  have  had  it  continually  dunned  into  our 
ears   that    it   is   this    striving,    competitive,   ambi- 


1  f 


M 


A 


tious,   self-assertive  and  noisy   person   who   has 
made  the  progress  of  the  world.     But  whither  is 
this    "progress"   taking   us?     Quite   clearly    (if 
we   are  allowed   to   judge    by   results)    it  means 
more    factories;     more    machines;     more    great 
towns  and  less  country;    more  smoke,  less  sun; 
the    workman   will    become   more    and   more    an 
automaton,    a  part   of   the   machine;     great   art 
is  to  give  place  to   great  production;     quantity 
of  wealth  is  to  be  considered  before  its  quality ; 
man  is  to  be  turned  into  a  scientific  instrument 
for  the  production  of  goods;    and  the  man  who 
produces  (or  rather  seizes)  the  most  of  them  is 
to  rule  all  the  others  who  get  less  ;    government 
is  to  be  performed  by  a  class  of  trained  bureau- 
crats  who  gather   themselves  into   great   capital 
cities    as    far    away    from    popular    control    as 
possible;     the  individuality  of  the  common  man 
is  to  be  reduced  to  a  convenient  standard ;    while 
the   individuality  of   the   nations    will   gradually 
disappear  as  they  are  gathered  together  into  great 
States.      Such  seems   to   be   the   picture  of  this 
"progress,"  but,  indeed,  it  is  blurred;     it  half 
vanishes  in  the  noise  and  dust  and  speed  of  its 
accomplishment.      It   is    like    a    cinema    that    is 

working  too  fast. 

But  who  are  these  who  dictate  the  standards 
of  life?  We  have  sat  silent  too  long  while  news^ 
paper  proprietors  and  university  dugouts  have 
splattered  decent  people  with  the  grease  of  their 
ideal  world,  bred  in  their  coal  pits  and  factory 
yards.      They    have    done    their   best    to    turn    a 


148 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


beautiful   earth  into   a   noisy   pigsty;     and   they 
have    the    cool    audacity    to    expound    it    as    a 
triumph  of  wisdom  and  taste.     It  is  the  dream 
of   a   company   promoter;     and   they   ask   us  to 
believe  that  it  has  the  approval  of  science  and 
philosophy.      In  the   face  of  all  the  fact^  they 
dare    to    claim    that    their    modern    system    is    a 
'*  progress  "    from    the    Middle    Ages.       Their 
argument  is  a  continuous  evasion  of  the  truth. 
There    is    room    for    a    seasoned    and    well- 
balanced  historian  to  work  out  with  unimpeach- 
able candour  whether  the  modern  society  is  really 
better  than  the  old.      He  will  have  to  consider, 
in   historic   detail,    whether   this   much-belauded 
**  energy  '*  has  not  done  as  much  harm  as  good; 
whether,  if  all  men  were  **  energetic,"  the  world 
would  be  a  Paradise  or  a  Bear  Pit.     Think  of 
him  calmly  and   searchingly  :     is   this   really   the 
highest  type  of  man?    It  is  not  a  question  for 
rhetoric,  but  for  careful  balancing  of  the  facts. 
This  historian  would  have  to  tell  us  if  the  people 
of  England  are  really  so  much  happier  because 
their    fathers    had    the    energy    to    conquer    an 
empire;     or  whether  the   whole   idea  of  empire 
is   merely  a   clever   trick   of   the   plutocrats  and 
government   officials   who    get    their    profits    and 
salaries   out  of   it.      Even    from   their   point  of 
view,   is  it  not  a   dangerous   game?    Rome  was 
ruined   by  building  an  empire.      If  this  modem 
ideal   of   energy   and   fierce    striving   is   a   good 
thing,  then  our  late  enemies,  the  Germans,  should 
command  our  unmitigated  respect. 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     U9 

This  inquiring  historian  may  emerge  from  his 
study  with  many  astounding  conclusions  which 
are  not  yet  considered  orthodox  in  historical 
circles.  He  may  decide,  in  cold  blood  and  on  the 
facts,  that  modern  society  has  more  noise  than 
reason  in  its  composition.  On  close  examination 
it  may  be  found  that  there  is  something  essentially 
vulgar  and  immoral  in  this  desire  to  rule  other 
people.  The  normal  man  has  not  this  craving; 
it  is  not  merely  that  he  lacks  the  energy,  he 
generally  also  lacks  the  desire.  There  is  an 
instinctive  delicacy  in  the  common  mind  which 
holds  it  back  from  the  wish  to  coerce  one's 
neighbours,  whether  it  be  for  their  good  or  ill. 
The  historian  may  decide  that  government  has 
in  the  main  been  the  trade  of  an  essentially 
vicious  class;  vicious,  not  in  the  sense  of  being 
personally  dishonest  or  corrupt,  but  because  it 
is  fundamentally  depraved  to  govern  even  well. 
The  Prussian  officer  was  such  a  crude  type  of 
the  governing  class  that  every  one  beyond  reach 
of  his  sword  could  only  shake  with  laughter.  .  He 
was  invented  by  the  Fates  for  the  enjoyment  of 
music-halls.  But  he  was  not  the  most  vicious 
part  of  German  government.  The  real  danger 
was  the  efficient  expert  official.  It  sounded  so 
reasonable  to  hold  that  a  carefully  trained  class 
of  administrators  could  most  easily  provide  us 
with  the  best  of  governments  in  the  best  of 
worlds.  Whether  the  German  people  are  now 
satisfied  that  this  perfect  theory  has  worked  out 
as  perfectly  in  practice,  is  an  interesting  ques- 


150 


THE  GUILD  STATE 


tion.  There  are  some  people  who  think  that 
what  man  must  discover  is  the  right  kind  of 
government.  The  strictly  impartial  historian  may 
conclude  that  sometimes  the  best  of  governments 
have  been  the  worst  ;  because  they  have  always 
meant  so  much  the  more  of  what  is  always 
bad.  The  German  system  of  highly  centralized 
and  highly  skilled  government  has  proved 
disastrous  just  because  it  succeeded  in  doing 
the  thing  more  efficiently  than  it  had  ever  been 
done  before  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The 
danger  of  it  was  not  that  it  failed,  but  that  it 
succeeded.  It  turned  the  German  people  into 
a  herd  of  well-governed  sheep  and  moral 
degenerates;  who  could  assassinate  their  neigh- 
bours, and  think  they  were  lofty-souled  patriots 
when  they  drove  in  the  bayonet. 

The  real  heart  of  the  Guild  idea  is  not  a 
mere  rearrangement  of  the  social  machinery; 
but  an  attempt  to  express  a  rearrangement  of 
human  ideals.  It  does  not  seek  ideals  that  are 
merely  pious  hopes,  but  rather  those  that  are 
the  deepest  traditions  of  the  human  race.  It 
is  the  modern  man  who  founds  his  system  on 
sentiments ;  it  is  the  guildsman  who  is  scien- 
tific and  practical.  He  does  not  desire  a  social 
system  based  on  the  weaknesses  of  the  few; 
but  one  which  befits  the  strength  of  the  many. 
Above  all  he  does  not  judge  that  the  final  test 
of  human  society  is  whether  it  is  best  arranged 
for  the  greatest  output  of  coal,  or  iron,  or 
farthing  newspapers  :    he   does   not   value   it   by 


1 


( 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     151 

the  speed  of  its  trains  or  the  size  of  its  empires. 
He  stubbornly  insists  that  the  supreme  test  of 
human  society  is  Man;  that  he  is  the  central 
pivot  on  which  all  must  revolve.  When  he  is 
told  that  a  factory  system  is  necessary  because  that 
is  the  quickest  way  of  producing  boots  or  tin  cans, 
he  asks  the  simple  question  :  Is  it  the  quickest 
way  of  producing  a  sane  man?  He  is  somewhat 
tired  of  trying  political  remedies  for  the  cure 
of  human  ills.  He  knows  that  when  the  Roman 
Republic  became  corrupt  men  sought  to  cure  it 
by  making  it  an  Empire;  and  when  the  Stuart 
kings  of  England  grew  tyrannical,  men  fled  to 
America  and  founded  a  Republic;  but  neither 
Rome  nor  America  gained  much  more  liberty 
than  if  all  had  remained  untouched.  So  the 
guildsman  turns  to  more  fundamental  factors  than 
poUtical  constitutions.  He  turns  to  a  time  when 
man  was  mainly  a  craftsman  and  a  democrat, 
who  had  not  wasted  many  hours  on  politicians 
and  governors. 

There  is  a  moment  when  patience  with  our 
opponents  is  no  longer  a  virtue.  We  have  sat 
submissive  too  long  while  the  salesmen  of  these 
modern  ideals  have  dogmatically  announced  their 
wares.  There  is  a  moment  when  it  is  time 
to  say  quite  curtly  that  we  have  listened  enough 
to  this  insolent  blufl" — for  half  this  defence  of 
the  Modem  State  is  bluff  and  nothing  else. 
When  we  are  offered  for  our  homage  a  society 
which  gives  us  Sir  Edward  Carson  instead 
of    Becket,    and    Comic    Cuts    instead    of    illi;- 


152 


THE  GUILD   STATE 


miiiated  manuscripts;  a  society  which  has  built 
Liverpool  and  New  York  and  destroyed  Ypres 
and  Reims;  which  has  set  up  plutocracy  in 
black  coats  instead  of  aristocrats,  who  at  least 
knew  how  to  dress;  which  has  given  us 
millionaires  instead  of  the  millennium,  and 
factory  hands  and  smoke  for  a  peasantry  who 
at  least  could  see  the  sun;  when,  in  short,  we 
are  offered  unmitigated  nonsense  for  something 
that  at  least  had  romance  and  beauty  and;  an 
unaffected  common  sense;  then  it  is  time  to 
show  our  opponents  the  door  and  suggest  the 
nearest  gate-post  aS  a  more  suitable  companion 
for  their  confidences.  Tolerance  is  a  very  great 
gift,  a  very  great  virtue;  but  when  men  say 
they  are  talking  sense  when  they  are  flying  in 
the  face  of  all  the  facts,  then  it  is  time  to 
show  a  little  human  dignity. 

Our  opponents  imagine  that  they  have 
answered  us  with,  the  crushing  phrase  :  *'  We 
cannot  go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages."  It  would 
be  equally  pertinent  to  reply  that  the  charge 
of  the  Light  Brigade  would  be  a  pastime  for 
nurserymaids  compared  with  the  superb  heroism 
of  riding  much  farther  with  the  present  system. 
However,  we  do  not  desire  to  return.  We  merely 
wish  to  cling  to  the  fundamental  facts  of  human 
nature,  rather  than  to  flirt  with  some  idle  fancies 
that  flitted  through  the  heads  of  a  few  economists 
and  politicians  who  mistook  statutes  and  ballot- 
boxes  for  the  wisdom  of  mankind.  We  are  not 
the    sentimentalists  :    it    is    the   man   who    says 


GUILDSMAN'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE     153 

that  Birmingham  is  a  greater  city  than  Bruges 
who  is  giddy  with  sentiment — and  regardless  of 
facts.  But  if  he  really  means  that  he  does  not 
want  to  return  to  Bruges  even  if  he  could, 
then  we  can  touch  ground  in  the  debate.  We 
are  not  quarrelling  about  methods;  we  are 
struggling  over  the  root  principles  of  human  ex- 
istence. It  is  not  a  matter  of  social  machinery; 
it  is  a  question  of  morals,  of  taste,  of  elemental 
sanity.  We  do  not  pretend  that  the  Guild  system 
will  give  the  **  modern  "  man  what  he  is  seeking. 
At  least  we  pray  most  devoutly  that  it  will  not; 
for  if  it  does,  it  will  be  but  another  of  those 
unkind  tricks  by  which  a  mysterious  fate  has 
so  often  made  sport  of  Mankind. 


<       •   • 


•    •         •    •    J  , 

••••••         « 

•    •       •     • 


*    •    •  •    • 


•  • 


»       »  « 


»      t 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by 
(JNWTN   BROTHERS,    LIMITED,   THE  QRESHAM  PRESS,   WOKINO  AND  LONUQ^' 


A  Guildsman's  Interpretation 
of  History 


"Demy  8 


By   a.  J.   PENTY 


vo. 


lis,  6d.  net. 

This  book  attempts  to  interpret  the  historical  significance  of  the  Guild 
Movement  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  who  believes  it  foreshadows 
*  '■?;"r"  *P  .,?ie?.'«val  civilization.  The  author  believes  that  as  our 
capitalist  civilization  is  breaking  up,  such  a  return  is  inevitable,  inasmuch 
as  there  are  only  two  types  finally  of  society-the  capitalists  of  Greece 
and  Kome  and  the  modern  world,  where  currency  is  unregulated  and 
the  ruined  civilization  of  Mediaeval  Europe  and  Asia,  where  it  was 
regulated  by  means  of  the  Just  Price.     Incidentally,  the  book  aims  at 

tevrkVo'virnf "'''  ''""^"°"  °'  "'^^^^y  *^^* ''  ^^^-^  ^»^« 

Co-operation  and  the  Future 

of  Industry      b^  Leonard  s.  woolf 

^f'  ^^0.  Second  Edition  rj,  „gf 

"  A  book  of  great  immediate  and  practical  importance.     Every  one  who 
desires  industrial  reconstruction  would  do  well  to  master  ii"— Herald. 

A  :tvevy  on  Capital 

By    F.    W.    PETHICK,. LAWRENCE 


Cr.  8vo. 


i « 


Tniitr>  EoiTioi^ : 


C/otA,  2/.  6J.  net. 


"The  best  statement,  set  forth  in  cold,  clear,  exact  argument   with 
statistical  evidence,  yet  made  of  t^c  cs^^:'— Manchester  Guardian. 

.    .  ■  •  

The  Politics  of  the  Proletariat 

By   MALCOLM   QUIN 

^'"^y  ^^^-  S^iJ  Paper  Covers,  5,.  ;,,/. 

"  His  aims  are  noble.     He  is  a  fine  sonV— Justice. 
"  A  man  of  acute  mind. "—Westminster  Gazette. 


^BIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 

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COLUMBIA  UNIV 


lllillll 

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,,„  ^     WOV  4    1958 
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END  OF 
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